PainLoveStrength
by KodiRae
Summary: I was seven when I ran away, and I ran into a world full of monsters. Sometimes mortals can hurt us the most. Includes graphic descriptions of sexual child abuse, molestation, rape, self harm. Please don't read if this triggers you in any way. This story is loosely based on my experiences.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own anything**

**I'm serious when I said don't read if this triggers you, an actual chapter to be uploaded in the next hour, thanks for reading!**

I stared at her, "I hate you" I thought over and over, there was no way she would ever understand what happened. How everything, absolutely everything was my fault.

"It's not your fault Annabeth." The hate began to boil over. I couldn't stop the tears that began to fill my eyes, we talked about this all last session and I didn't want to talk about this now. "So you believe that you spent the last ten years at a summer camp." This wasn't really the change of topic I wanted.

"It's like a very hands-on boarding school. A lot of kids stay there over the summer, and only about half of us stayed all year." I muttered, she wrote this down and I knew that was another plus for "crazy as hell" next to my name.

"What's the name of this school?" I refused to answer, 'Camp Half-Blood' wouldn't be the best thing to say right now. She sighed and drew a line under all her notes. "Why did you run away Annabeth?" I knew what she was talking about, but was it really that important?

"Because I was a stupid kid, I thought I could find my mother."

"Your mother's name is Athena?" Nod. "And you read a lot, you still read a lot?" Nod. "So it wouldn't be irrational for you to contemplate the theory that you having read so much, and having a mother that you never met, named Athena, came up with the scenario that you are a demi-god?" I couldn't have made everything up, that would have been years of hallucinations. And if those years aren't real, then what actually happened to me during those years? "For what you went through, at such a young age, you could have developed any number of disorders, but you need to let me help you figure out what is real and what is not."

"I know what's real." I grumble defiantly.

"Then tell me about your school for kids like you, it sounds pretty cool."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for reading! -Kodi**

"You need to get your daughter together, I can't have her acting this way around the twins and I'm not uprooting this family if she keeps getting expelled from school." My step-mother's voice traveled up the stairs. I wanted to punch a wall, I wanted to dump all of my books off my bookshelf, but I snuggled deep into my covers and tried to ignore them.

"There's nothing wrong with Annie, she's a little different, but she did just get two new brothers." My father insisted.

"Why isn't her mother paying child-support?"

"I don't know where she is"-

"That's right that heartless bitch Athena didn't even tell you she was having a baby, you didn't see her for nine months and you suddenly had a baby in your house. But there was still no Athena, maybe whatever is wrong with Annabeth is genetic." Tears burnt my eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to find my mom, my real mom and prove to my dad that she just made a mistake. I fell asleep as the argument continued, there was nothing I could do to stop their argument.

"Annbef!" A young shrill voice cried right near my ear. I jumped up and saw my step-mother standing beside me holding Michael and Bobby. Bobby was grinning from ear to ear leaning toward me. He was handed off to me, "Annbef!" He screamed again. I flinched and tried not to throw him a disgusted look.

"You're father already left for work, you're still suspended so you get to help me with the twins and do chores." I did the stupid chores and helped feed the dirty gremlins, then she tried to get me to do homework. I read the word problems out loud and tried to focus, I tried really hard. I didn't like my dad arguing with my step-mom and I wasn't as stupid as she thought I was. "You read that all wrong, are you trying to be funny?" She was getting mad, and I wasn't trying to be funny. I shook my head and looked at the paragraph again to see that the words had changed. I could feel my face burn in embarrassment. "This is the kind of stuff that gets you in trouble all the time Annabeth. You need to get over the fact that you have siblings and start getting work done. And stop crying." I dried my eyes furiously and started to read the paragraph again. "No, wrong." I looked at the words, they didn't change. "Form, not from. The word from doesn't even make sense there." I slammed my book shut and without hesitation threw everything onto the floor.

I was seeing nothing but red as I knocked things over and watched them break on the ground. I was pulled down to the ground, my arms pinned to my side until I stopped thrashing. "Go to your room." She said in a shaking breath. I jumped up and finished my tantrum in my bedroom, the twins were crying and their mother was swearing. I packed up a backpack with my favorite books, a notebook, a blanket, all of my money, and tied my jacket around my waist. I pulled out a sheet of paper and began writing to my dad.

"I'm going to find my mom, I'll call you when I find her." - Annabeth

I climbed out my window and started my walk, I was lucky because we live so close to the highway. I walked until it got dark out then just as I got tired and scared, and seriously thought about going home, a truck pulled over.

"Hey sweetie, what's your name?" A man asked getting out and crouching down to be at my height.

"Annabeth Chase." I answered proudly. He looked around at the empty road, checked my backpack, and looked to see if any cars were coming.

"That's such a beautiful name for a very beautiful ten year old girl." I laughed.

"I'm not ten, I'm only seven."

"Wow, you're very mature for a seven year old. Are you going to your friend's house for a sleepover?" I could feel this conversation changing around me, when did this man get so close to me? Strangers are bad, but I'm a big kid, I can handle this.

"No I'm looking for my mom." I tried to stand up as tall as I could, and this made him smile. He had a nice smile.

"Do you know where she is?" I thought it over.

"New York."

"Wow, I'm on my way to New York right now. I can give you a ride." I couldn't get rides from strangers, I knew that much. "My name is Riley, my mom and dad live in New York and I'm on my way to visit them." Well that made sense. He didn't look old, he had no wrinkles on his face and hardly any hair.

"How old are you?" I asked him he took my hand gently and led me towards his truck.

"Twenty-seven. Pretty old huh?" I just nodded and shuffled my feet, I suddenly didn't want to get in his car at all. I wanted to go home and have the stupid twins drool on me. "This is my little sister, you guys can be friends when we get to New York." He flipped a picture in front of me and suddenly he picked me up and tossed me into the front seat of his car. He ran around and got in the driver's seat and pulled back onto the deserted road.

"Riley, I-I changed my mind. I don't want to find my mom anymore. I just want to go home." I stammered feeling tears roll down my face. I began kicking the glove box, my heart beat faster and faster, I pounded my fists against him and the window and tried to open the door but it wouldn't budge. Riley's face got redder and redder. If I got him mad enough he would take me home, he doesn't want to drive all the way to New York with this in his car.

"Stop right now or you're going to regret it." I was scared, and I tried to stop but I continued to kick the glove box. In one swift movement Riley slapped my face, I couldn't breathe for a second and it hurt more than anything had ever hurt before. Riley pulled the car over. I thought he was going to let me out, but he just opened a can of soda and drank half of it, he pulled out a medicine bottle and broke a pill in half and dropped it in the can. He handed it to me and I took it with a shaking hand. "Drink all of it." I brought the can to my lips and sipped the soda, it tasted terrible.

"We have to stop and sleep somewhere tonight, I'll drive you home tomorrow. But you have to drink all of that, don't say anything about how bad it tastes or I'll hit you again." I didn't want that at all. I drank the disgusting soda as fast as I could and Riley drove to the nearest gas station. He led me to the bathroom and made sure I went because we had a "long drive back to my dad's house." As I washed my hands I started to feel funny, my body felt heavy and as I stepped out of the bathroom Riley picked me up and carried me back to his truck, where I fell asleep instantly.

**Please Review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't own anything about Percy Jackson**

**Thanks for continuing to read! As this story actually reaches some depth and serious topics I want to warn any of those that are easily triggered that this story contains graphic material. - Kodi**

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you my dad's address." It was my fault, I had never told him my dad's address. I looked down and noticed that I was in a big t-shirt, with no panties on. My face burnt red and I pulled the shirt down as low as it could go.

"I did your laundry for you so you have clean clothes to wear." My clothes were folded neatly on the table. "I'm sorry I hit you yesterday, but you started to act crazy!" He said jokingly. He gave me a hug and kissed my forehead. He patted my thigh and held my hand as he turned on cartoons. We watched an hour of cartoons then Riley said there was a McDonalds across the street, that he would be right back. He was back in twenty minutes with McDonalds for the both of us. I ate the food in the kids' meal and this time the soda didn't taste funny.

"Let's get ready to go!" He exclaimed after finishing the food and helping me clean up. "I'll run you a bath okay?" I nodded and followed him in the bathroom. "Ready?" He asked after turning the water off.

"I'm a big kid, I can do it myself." I sassed, he smiled.

"I know, but I'll tell you a secret." My heart dropped. "I called your dad while you were sleeping, I promised him I'd take care of you and make sure nothing happens." I chewed on my lip.

"Is he mad?" I asked Riley, feeling tears come to my eyes again.

"Not at all, he even called your mom so she's waiting for us." I snapped my head up. "So I just want to make sure you stay safe in here, so I'll just mind my own business as you take a bath, okay?"

"Okay." I pulled his shirt off and stepped in the tub. I started playing with all the hotel soaps and the shampoo was about the kill the face soap when Riley announced he was going to wash my hair. My dad did it all the time so I was used to this. I dunked my head into the water so my hair was wet and Riley stole the shampoo. He wasn't as good as my dad was at being gentle, but he finished washing it and then put the conditioner in. Before he washed it out he reached around and began tickling me. Not hard enough to be annoying like my cousin would sometimes do, he tipped my head back and rinsed out the conditioner and began combing my hair. I resumed playing with soaps, he told me to stand up so he could wash my back, then he just held my arm and turned me around and washed my stomach and my legs and rinsed me off. I went to sit back in the water but he held my arm and kept me standing.

He touched a scar on my stomach that I got from climbing a tree with thorns, then he touched me. This was bad, bad, wrong, wrong. I wanted him to stop, but there were no words to describe how badly I wanted him to let me go. It didn't hurt, but it was bad, I didn't like it. I closed my eyes tight and seconds later a towel was wrapped around me and I was lifted from the tub. I was placed in the room and the door slammed quickly. I heard Riley grunting and a few minutes later the sound of the sink. I sat on the floor where he dropped me. Riley opened the door and glanced at me.

"Can, can I take another bath?" I whispered, I suddenly felt incredibly dirty. Like I had been in a mud fight.

"You liked me touching you, hm?" He asked with a smirk.

"No, I feel gross." I insisted, he didn't understand I needed to take another bath. He pulled me up from the floor and hugged me. I wanted to pull away from him, but this wasn't a normal hug, it was too tight. He kissed me on the lips and dried me off from my bath. I started crying, but Riley didn't seem to notice and a few moments later he helped me put all my clothes back on. He led me out to his truck and we started driving again.

We drove for hours and hours and when we stopped at another motel my stomach started to hurt. I didn't want to take another bath in front of him, and I didn't want to share a bed with him. I sat in the car and watched as the sun went down. "How far away is New York?" I asked Riley.

"It should take another two or three days." I couldn't tell if he was lying or not, but I had to believe him and I could handle two or three days of this.

"Can I call my dad?" Riley typed in my dad's number and handed me the phone. The phone made a weird noise and a message said something about the phone being disconnected. "I think it's broken."

"You can try again later. Come on let's go get some food." I noticed a small diner across the street.

"Are we staying in the motel tonight?" I asked as he took my hand and we began to cross the street.

"No, we're going to drive some more so we don't waste any time getting to New York." I nodded, and even though I didn't want to hold his hand I really didn't want to get hit by a car. We went into the diner and sat in a booth in the far corner. "You aren't allowed to talk to anyone, if you talk to them then they'll arrest you for running away." Arrest me? Was running away illegal? I sat in the booth and colored the work sheet that the waitress gave me. Riley ordered me a grilled cheese sandwich without asking me what I wanted and we ate in silence. After we finished eating Riley got me a refill on my soda and put the other half of the pill in it.

"I promise I'll be good." I whispered. Riley stirred the straw so all the medicine was mixed in. "I don't want to take that medicine, I'll go to sleep myself I promise." Riley ignored me and pushed the drink closer. "I'm not going to drink it." I grumbled, crossing my arms and leaning back in the booth.

Riley glared at me in a way that made me want to run from the restaurant, I wanted to make a scene and tell everyone what Riley had done. "I can make you drink it." He growled across the table, he grabbed my wrist and squeezed it tight. I grabbed his fingers and tried to get him to let me go, but he squeezed tighter and tighter until I had tears fall from my eyes. "I won't let go until you drink it." He pulled the bottle of pills out of his pocket and placed them on the table. "I have over sixty pills in here, I will take you outside, put one in your mouth and cover it until the pill melts." He pushed the glass of soda closer to me and I reluctantly put the straw in my mouth. "If you think the soda tastes bad just think how bad the medicine tastes without the soda." I drank the soda and stared down at the table shamefully. Riley didn't let go of my wrist until the soda was completely gone. "No go to the bathroom." I did as I was told and held my sore wrist in my other hand trying to rub the pain away. When I came back to the table there was money on it and Riley was standing there waiting for me. I followed him to the truck and instead of opening the door for me he hit me hard in the stomach.

I couldn't breathe, stars flashed before my eyes and I fell in the parking lot. "Don't you ever talk back to me again. Do it again and I'll give you away to someone even meaner than me." He opened the car door and tossed me roughly inside. I didn't have to tolerate the stabbing pain in my stomach for long and the disgusting medicine made me sleepy.

**If you, or anyone you know, close to you or not, is suffering from abuse of any kind be on the safe side and tell someone. Teachers, counselors, coaches, university professors, and anyone that has some kind of higher board to report to has some kind of training in reporting abuse.**

**Please Review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**I don't own anything**

**After reading my first reviews I'm feeling both anxious and confident about what I'm doing. Thank you for those that reviewed it means a lot to me! And just seeing how many people look at my story a day means a lot too!**

**I've figured out why I'm writing this story, as I half explained in the summary the things Annabeth goes through are similar to my experiences. I wasn't kept from my family in any way and my version of Riley was a family friend, I've never talked in any detail about my experiences and having recently been attending counseling my secrecy has been weighing on me.**

**I know the extended amount of hardships Annabeth endures may discomfort and displease a lot of people, and one of my fatal flaws is pleasing others, but I'm not going to back down. I'll try and keep things tasteful obviously, and I care a lot about Annabeth, but keep in mind that she is me.**

**Thanks for participating in my heart to heart!**

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><p>I woke up in the truck and so happy that we weren't in another nasty motel. My stomach lurched and I turned to Riley. "I'm going to throw-up." Riley sighed loudly and pulled the car over. I threw up on the side of the road and suddenly realized that I missed my step-mom, I would rather be expelled from another school, have her be mad at me, and take care of the twins all by myself than be in this truck with Riley.<p>

I began sobbing uncontrollably and Riley wiped my face roughly with a towel from his car. He put me back in the car and pulled back onto the highway. "I want to go home." I cried.

"Get buckled." I did as I was told, that lesson had been learned last night. "I talked to your dad again."

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I tried, but you were deep asleep." It was because of the medicine that was his fault, I told him I didn't need it. "He said no matter what don't take you back there. He and your step-mom are fighting and he moved out."

"What about my brothers?" I could see them fighting, dad was probably mad that I ran away but my evil step mother was probably happy, and that would make dad even angrier.

"They're staying with your step mom, but your dad is going to meet us in New York, so there's nothing to worry about." I reached under my seat and pulled out my backpack, but it was much lighter than I remember. I opened it and saw my jacket and the blanket I packed, but everything else was gone, my books, my money, my picture. I had a picture, I had stolen it from my father months ago and put it in-between the pages of a book on Greek mythology, marking the chapter on Athena. Dad said that the lady in the picture wasn't my mom but it felt like he was lying, and if you looked at the picture just right she looked like the Athena in my book, but it didn't matter because the book and the stupid picture were gone.

"Did you take my stuff?"

"It's safe." Riley said calmly. I looked around his car, there weren't many places he could hide it. "You won't find it." He taunted me.

"Why did you do that? That was all the stuff I had." It took all the strength I had not to start kicking his car again. "You can have the money, but I want"-

"You can keep your lousy twelve dollars you stupid shit. You seriously ran away from home with twelve dollars and some books? What were you going to eat?" I didn't want to answer him, he was going to hit me again, and I could see his face turning red. "You're so lucky I picked you up before someone that would really hurt you. I'll give you back your books when you give me what I want."

"What do you want?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"Don't worry about that." He chuckled squeezing my thigh. I truly hated when he did that. "Now stop talking, go to sleep or pretend to be asleep or I'll give you more medicine." I truly didn't want that so I leaned back in the seat and kept my eyes closed, I eventually did fall asleep for real.

I had a dream about the woman in the picture that I stole from my dad, this wasn't abnormal, I had dreams about her all the time. In the dreams I used to have we would go on walks, play in the park, eat at the breakfast table with my dad as a family, but this dream was different.

"Annabeth you have to run away." Athena said in the middle of our picnic. I offered her another sandwich but she just grabbed my hand tightly. "He's going to hurt you, Riley is a very bad man. You have to run away."

"But he's taking me to you." I said simply. "It will be okay, we can live together."

"I love you Annabeth, but he's lying and he's going to hurt you. I'll send help as soon as I can, and when I do you have to run." She hugged me and tried to understand what she was telling me. "Don't give up."

"Wake up, time for food." Riley's voice broke into my dream, but I saw my mother give me a worried look before I opened my eyes. We were in front of another scary looking diner.

"What state are we in?" I asked as I took Riley's out stretched hand and followed him into the diner.

"Missouri, what do you want to eat?" We sat in another booth and I was handed a coloring sheet.

"Chicken tenders please." I said after the waitress left. "Are we close to New York?"

"Almost, but not really." It was obvious he didn't want to talk to me so I focused on coloring. He kept an eye on the door as I ate my chicken tenders, but today he didn't look mad, he just looked tired. "Time to go." Riley said quickly as I finished my food. He dropped forty dollars on the table and picked me up, pressing my face into his shoulder.

On the way out of the diner I saw two police officers walk in. Riley pulled out of the parking lot quickly and we drove for five hours before stopping. We stopped at a motel and Riley ordered a pizza, he let me decide what we would watch on TV and then before he went to sleep forced me to drink another soda mixed with medicine. Riley laid down on the only bed in the room and fell asleep instantly, I went to the bathroom and as I was washing my hands I heard a faint voice that was hardly more than a whisper.

"Runaway Annabeth." Athena's voice was hardly recognizable. Riley was asleep, I walked out of the bathroom and tip toed past him. I fumbled with the lock on the door, but my mind had already gotten foggy and my fingers were numb. I laid down on the floor and fought the exhaustion covering me. "I love you Annie, stay strong." Athena's voice disappeared.

I woke up in Riley's truck and the day of driving continued, we ate at a fast food restaurant and stopped for the night in a gross motel that looked just like the one before it. One bed, a grainy television, and a bathroom that I dreaded entering. We ate dinner, watched TV, and Riley "helped" me take a bath, I drank the medicine and Riley tucked me into bed before laying down beside me.

The next day was like the last, and the day after that I sat in the motel eating a sandwich Riley had haphazardly put together. I slowly turned to Riley and swallowed the bit of sandwich in my mouth. "What do I have to do to get my stuff back?" Riley smirked in a way that made my stomach turn and start to regret my question.

"We can talk, after your bath." But we didn't really "talk" after my bath, Riley demanded that I help him. That it was my turn to touch him, before I could even get the word 'no' out of my mouth he slapped me. He won, he always wins and as I got ready for bed and took my medicine the Greek mythology book he handed me seemed tainted. I no longer felt I deserved it, because what I had just done was wrong.

I didn't ask for any of my stuff back ever again, but every deed I was forced to perform for Riley was rewarded. By the end of the week Riley let me go to sleep without any medicine and after getting ready for bed I opened my Greek mythology book for the first time since "earning" it back. I slowly opened it to the chapter I kept marked with my mother, I read all the amazing things that Athena could do out of anger and pain. I wasn't physically hurt, but I was angry and I prayed that I could turn people into creatures. "Go to sleep." Riley said turning off the light. I closed the book and as I lay under the covers I realized that even the mother in my dreams had abandoned me.

The next afternoon I saw the sign that meant I was almost free. "New York – 400 miles"

"We'll be in New York tomorrow kid, I'll find your mom and dad." I asked if I could try to call my dad again, and like always the weird machine picked up. I thought about my mother as hard as I could, but no one spoke to me, but today it was all okay because I was almost there.

"Stay in the room and don't answer the door for anyone, I'll be back in an hour with dinner. If you're good I'll get you ice cream." Riley smiled warmly and turned on cartoons. He kissed my forehead and walked out of the motel room. I brushed my wet hair and contemplated taking a shower since I knew Riley wouldn't be there, I would actually be clean for the first time in a week, but the thought of even stepping foot in the bathroom made my stomach hurt. I pulled my "pajama shirt" over my knees and watched the cartoon that Riley turned on, I glanced at the phone on the night stand and was about to pick it up and try my dad's number again, but the door handle jiggled. I jumped back and stared at the TV so Riley wouldn't get mad at me, but the person that came through the door wasn't Riley.

"Hi Annabeth." A man said stepping inside and locking the door, I jumped off the bed and backed against the wall. "It's okay." He smiled and took a step closer.

"No, Riley will be mad when he sees you here." I wanted to run somewhere, anywhere, but there was only one door and this stranger was standing in front of it.

"Riley's a friend of mine, he told me to check on you. My name is Matt." He sat on the bed and patted the space next to him. "How was your day?"

"Fine, I don't know if you're supposed to be here though, can – can you come back when Riley gets here?" Matt ignored me and slid closer on the bed.

"Riley's on his way, he just called me." Matt pulled out his cell phone and dialed some numbers. "Hey Riley, I'm with Annabeth, I just need you to tell her it's okay." Matt handed me the phone, I stayed as far away as I could and grabbed his phone.

"Riley?" I jumped back away from Matt as fast as I could.

"It's okay Annabeth, Matt is my friend. He won't hurt you, I'll be back in twenty minutes, okay? Just be good and everything will be fine. Promise me you'll be good."

"I promise." I responded feeling a little better. I handed the phone back to Matt, but stayed tight against the wall.

"See Annabeth it's okay." I nodded, but didn't move. I could see frustration playing on his face. He stood up to stand near me and I ran for the door, I didn't care if I was in a shirt with no panties, socks, or shoes. I didn't like Matt and I didn't want to be in a room with him.

His arm wrapped around my waist, picking me up and tossing me on the bed. I scrambled to get away, but he held me by both my arms and leaned on top of me. I kicked and screamed, clawed and squirmed, but Matt was bigger and stronger. He pulled my night shirt up, slapped a hand over my mouth, and forced my legs apart. He spat on his hand and touched me the way Riley usually does, though I hated this I knew it would be over soon and once it was done he would leave.

But he didn't leave, Matt pulled his pants down and pain erupted through me. I had fallen off my bike, gotten into fights, and broken my arm, but this pain killed me. I was going to explode and as the pain worsened I suddenly was looking at myself, I saw what Matt was doing to me and I could see myself screaming and crying, but I didn't feel anything I couldn't hear anything.

I turned my back on what was happening, I watched the cartoons still playing on the TV and in this state I easily lost track of time. The door to the hotel room burst open and I watched as Riley tackled Matt. Though I tried not to I glanced at myself for the smallest second, I had rolled on my side, still crying, but there was blood everywhere. I dragged my eyes away and watched Riley punch Matt, he dragged him to the door by the collar of his shirt and I saw Matt push a handful of money into Riley's pocket before he was pushed out of the room with the door locked behind him.

I watched as Riley sat beside me on the bed, he picked me up and held me close. He rubbed my back and rocked back and forth on the bed, I watched as his lips moved but I still couldn't hear anything. I took a deep breath and was suddenly snapped back inside my body, the pain was nauseating. "I'm so sorry Annie, I'm so sorry." Riley whispered. I gripped his shirt and cried for the longest time. When I finally stopped Riley kissed my forehead and picked me up, he brought me into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I took off the shirt that now had blood on it and stepped in.

"It'll be okay, I'm here to take care of you." Riley continued, gently washing the blood from my thighs. "I still have your ice cream, we're going to watch a movie and eat ice cream and we'll be in New York tomorrow."

"Promise?" I don't know why I believed him, Riley had lied to me the whole way here.

"I swear. Are you ready to get out or do you need a minute alone?"

"No, don't leave me alone, please." Riley wrapped me tight in a towel and picked me up again. He gave me a clean shirt and even let me put panties on, I sat on his lap at the table and ate a few bites of ice cream.

"I thought you liked ice cream?" Riley asked continuing to rub my back.

"I'm sorry, I just don't feel good." I whispered. "Can I take medicine and go to sleep? Please?"

"Of course." Riley pulled the medicine out of his pocket and broke one in half, he got a spoon of ice cream and placed it in there. "Just swallow it fast." I did what he said without thinking and snuggled into him. "You're so brave Annabeth, you're very beautiful." I wrapped my arms around Riley's neck as he stood up from the table. He laid a towel over the spots of blood and tucked me into the covers. "No one can hurt you while I'm here." I stared at the cartoon playing on the TV and let the medicine take me away.

For the first time I liked that medicine and for the first time Riley didn't scare me.

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><p><strong>Phew, that was a lot. And very difficult for me to write and if you survived to the end of this chapter I applaud you. I'll update as soon as I can!<strong>

**In my situation Riley and Matt are the same person and the "out of body" experience Annabeth has, though slightly exaggerated, is called disassociation. I personally never saw myself outside of my body, but in my head there was a place I could go and not be "there". Looking back I am very thankful for that trait but as an adult I've lost control of it so to speak, there are some times I wish I had it and other times I desperately need to turn it off.**

**Thanks for reading, please review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry for the slight delay everybody, I had written a few chapters ahead but my computer deleted them! I'm moving out of my apartment and trying to find a new job so just hang in with me and I'll try and update at least once a week.**

I woke up feeling terrible, my stomach hurt in a way that I didn't know existed. My body was sore and I knew that if I moved then I would explode. I could hear Riley walking around the room, but I didn't open my eyes, eventually he just picked me up and put me in the truck and we drove away from the motel. I wanted to pretend to be asleep all day, but Riley woke me up in front of another diner.

"I'm not hungry." I whispered at the table.

"You have to eat, I need you to eat ten bites that's all." I nodded.

"Can I have more medicine?"

"No." I felt tears burn my eyes, I needed that medicine. "Don't you dare cry, it's okay. You'll be okay." He held my hand from across the table and I held back the tears. I ate whatever he ordered me and got back into the car and closed my eyes. I didn't open them until the car stopped and Riley opened the door.

"Are we in New York?" I asked before he stepped out, but I looked around and saw we were in front of another motel. "Why are we here?"

"The truck is broken, we're really close, but I don't have the money right now to fix the car." My heart raced. I wanted nothing to do with the motel in front of me. "Get your stuff and get out." I listened to what he said and stood in the parking lot as he got a key. He opened our room and waited for me to go inside.

"I want to go to New York, you promised you would take me."

"I will, but the car is broken." He was getting frustrated, I was walking on thin ice with this conversation, but I needed to make him understand how serious this was for me.

"I don't want to stay here, I'll walk the rest of the way."

"No you won't that's absurd, get in the room Annabeth." I shuffled closer, but my heart pounded so hard it hurt, my breath hitched in my chest and my hands began to shake.

"I'll sleep in the car, just don't make me stay here." Riley got down on his knees.

"I promised I would protect you, when my friends come over I'll stay here." I chewed on my cheek.

"I don't like your friends, do they have to come over?"

"None of them are as mean as Matt I promise." He picked me up and brought me in the room before I could protest anymore. I sat in the corner of the room and watched as he walked around and put his stuff in the drawers, he had never put his things in the room before.

"Can you call my dad to pick me up?" I asked softly.

"No, I need to get my truck fixed and then we'll get to New York. That's how it is. I'm going to go get us some dinner, don't you dare leave this room." I nodded. Riley left me there and I stared at the front door. I was alone and anyone could come in and hurt me. Just this thought made me want to crawl under the bed, but my body was paralyzed but the fear of that door opening was even worse so I quickly crawled to the closet and shut the door tight.

From the light that poured in under the door I stared at the picture of my father and who I pretended to be Athena. Why had I ever run away? I was so stupid and now my father will never want me back, but even if that was true I had to find him and just tell him I was sorry. I stared at that picture until I heard the front door open, I almost died, but it was Riley that called out for me.

"What the hell are you doing in there?" My face burnt red and I could tell by the way that Riley was glaring at me that he wouldn't understand if it tried to explain it to him. "Get out of there and eat dinner." I scrambled to comply to his request and decided that I really didn't need to talk today. Riley seemed pretty happy that I wasn't bothering him and when it was time for my bath I didn't complain or drag my feet like I usually did, as soon as things turned bad I managed to get back to that place in my head where bad things didn't happen. Just as I was about to return to my body someone walked into the hotel room. Riley just sat at the small table where our dinner was still sitting and watched as this stranger tried to touch me, my body obviously didn't really need me inside because I shoved him away and cried towards Riley. But from out here I could see that my dream mother had been right, Riley was a bad person. And Riley was going to hurt me.

I couldn't hear him, but I could see from here that I had to let this man do whatever he wanted. Riley seemed to know him and Riley didn't care that I didn't want to do this. I stopped fighting but there was no way that I would ever stop crying. Riley had promised that he would protect me, that he wouldn't let anyone hurt me and he lied. With that thought the tears did stop and my face froze in a stare of blank nothing, I didn't watch what the stranger did, I didn't need to see that again.

Riley stayed the whole time, maybe he thought this was protecting me, but I hated him with every atom of my being. It didn't take long for the man to leave but I didn't want to return to my body, but after a while I didn't have a choice and I was suddenly back in my disgusting body. The man was sitting at the table talking to Riley, and I couldn't look at him, I didn't want him here any longer.

"Call me if you need anything." Riley said to him with a huge smile. The man grunted and dropped money on the table. Once the stranger was gone Riley made me take another shower and brushed my hair in front of cartoons. He whispered in my ear how beautiful I was and how proud he was.

"Why did he give you money?" I asked as Riley tried to make me go to bed.

"Because spending time with you is very special." He answered simply.

"I thought you weren't going to let them hurt me?" I felt tears in my eyes, but I was furious with Riley.

"I made sure he wasn't as bad as Matt right?" I didn't answer, I wanted to hit him. "Was he?"

"No, but I don't want, I hate"- My words got stuck in my throat, how could I explain how terrible this was?

"Okay well here's the deal, I don't have any money to fix the car. These people give me money to spend time with you, you only have to do that five more times before I have enough money to fix the car okay?" Not okay, but I had to get to New York. "I'll be here every time so they don't hurt you."

"Can I have medicine to fall asleep?" Riley handed me another pill and I swallowed it whole without it being mixed in soda. I stared at the ceiling and begged for my dream mother to come back and give me more advice. I wanted to run away, I just didn't know how or where, and it was running away in the first place that got me here.

I woke up in the motel room alone and panicked, why would Riley leave me alone? If he left me alone anyone could get in and hurt me, someone could kill me, and what if he left me here and went to New York all by himself. I saw a note on the table and read it carefully so I wouldn't get any words wrong.

"Annabeth, went to go buy groceries." That was it? Why couldn't he take me with him? I tried to stand up and go to the bathroom, but the pain that struck through me was surprising and I knew then that other people would know that I was a bad kid. I shuffled to the bathroom and got dressed in day clothes before sitting back down on the bed and watching television. I flipped through all the channels twice before something made me drop the remote.

"Seven year old Annabeth Chase has been missing for over a week." That was me, why was I on the news? "She left a note to her father that she ran away, but was never found. A few days ago someone identified her and we have this security footage." You could see me and Riley in the video, he looked really mean. "This man is named Logan Jacobs." I turned the channel to cartoons, they had that wrong, they didn't really know where I was if they didn't even know Riley's name.

Riley came back a few hours later with groceries and didn't look at all surprised that I was still there. He knew I was too scared to even think about running away.

"Is someone coming over today?" I asked softly.

"No, not today, tomorrow." I let out a small breath of relief. I wanted to tell him about me being in the news, but I knew that it would just make him very, very angry. I played a few card games with him and hugged him tightly for the movies he brought back. Even though I knew that Riley was bad, that my dream mom had been very right and he hurt me, he was the only person I had to protect me.

**Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks for reading! And I love everyone that has reviewed!**

I kept a tally on the inside cover of the notebook I had brought along and as soon as I had five tallies inside I knew that I was free. The next morning at breakfast I smiled at Riley, "So when will the truck be fixed?" I asked. Riley stared at me for a few moments, maybe he didn't understand. "You said five people, we have enough money to fix the car right?"

"Yes, but it'll take a week for the car to get fixed, so a few more days and we'll leave." I could handle that. "So it wouldn't hurt to make some more money while we wait."

"I don't want to." I said softly. Riley hadn't hit me in weeks and the slap caught me by complete surprise. He stood me up roughly by one arm and shook me roughly, I stared down at the floor, but he hit me again, and again, and again.

"You do what I tell you, when I tell you. Understand?" He didn't give me a chance to answer, just hit me again. "Your parents aren't coming to get you, they don't love you, I'm taking care of you and the least you can do is what I tell you." I felt myself pull back into my mind, but Riley grabbed my face and forced me to look at him. "You belong to me, you do what I tell you to."

But it hurts, I feel terrible, I feel disgusting, I feel used. I wanted to tell him, but the glare in his eye told me he didn't care how I felt. He already got what he wanted from me and he wanted nothing else from me. He wiped the tears out from under my eyes and I winced at the bruise that was already forming under my eye.

"Let's go take a bath and get dressed. I don't want to hear a damn thing about what you want ever again." He was right, he didn't care about me at all. I didn't talk, there really wasn't a point. I felt a familiar uncontrollable urge, one that would usually send me into a tantrum, but I wanted to feel something else and it scared me what I could do to myself. Riley bathed me and clothed me then had me stand in front of the mirror and he brushed my hair, I was surprised at the light bruising on my face, but my dream had warned me, and I didn't listen, I didn't run away.

I tried as hard as I could to stay in my head for the next week, it made my head hurt but I didn't have to worry about that those people had done to me. I didn't dare keep track in a notebook anymore, just looking in the notebook made me want to throw up. I ate the food Riley put in front of me, I wore the clothes he gave me, I did what he asked me, and I smiled at the men he brought to me. I did everything I could to keep Riley happy, but he still hit me, he wouldn't give me medicine to help me sleep unless one of his "friends" gave him extra money. I hadn't said a word in an entire week, but Riley still insisted that I did everything wrong, but I knew Riley was still there to protect me because after every man left Riley would hold me, tell me I was beautiful, and promise me that he would take care of me.

After a week of having Riley do everything for me and just acting like a sort of robot I didn't know what to do when Riley packed all of his things and handed me my back pack and opening the motel room door. I took a deep breath and came all the way back into my body in an attempt to understand what was going on.

"I thought you wanted to go to New York. We'll get there tonight." I walked slowly towards the door, Riley started to look impatient and making him angry was the last thing I wanted to do right now. "Get in the truck." He said softly. I did as I was told, but it felt like such a long time ago that I had sat here hoping that I would find my mother and leave my step-mother far behind me. Now I felt as though I had no family, all I had was Riley and he let people hurt me in a way that made me hate myself.

We drove for six hours and we entered a world so different than one I had ever seen. I had been in cities before but nothing close to New York. "Pull over." I blurted.

"What are you crazy?" Riley laughed. "Where do you think you're going to go?"

"I can find my mom and dad from here, please pull over." Riley continued to laugh like I was stupid, I felt stupid even without him laughing.

"Your parents are going to meet us at a motel. I gave them the address and they'll be here tomorrow to come get you." I felt tears again, but I fought them back, Riley wasn't ever going to let me go. It made me angry, but he was bigger than me, he was stronger than me, and he was the only person that could protect me.

We pulled in front another dingy motel, I knew right away that as soon as my parents came to get me I would never step foot in a motel again. I got out of the truck and followed Riley inside, I couldn't help but smile a little bit at the fact there were two separate beds in the room. "That bed is yours." Riley said dropping his stuff on a bed. I took a running leap for it and thanked him over and over. "Let's go get some ice cream?"

"Really?" I asked tentatively, I was worried where he would take me, maybe he really was going to give me away.

"Yup I promise." He opened his arms for a hug and I jumped into his arms, I knew it would make him happy and if he was happy he wouldn't give me away. I got in the car and was amazed that we actually pulled in front of an ice cream shop, it was probably one of the most expensive places I had ever been in and Riley bought me an ice cream so large there was no way I could finish it. "You know I don't mean it when I get mad at you, I just get worried that you don't love me as much as I love you."

"I'm sorry." I answered.

"Do you love me Annabeth?"

"I love you." I just needed to tell him what he needed to hear.

"You know that those times I get mad at you, it's because you don't listen some times."

"I know and I'm sorry." Riley leaned over and kissed the top of my head, at least he was happy. He finished the ice cream I couldn't and we drove around the city, the bright lights were dizzying and on a full stomach I fell asleep in less than an hour.

I woke up in the motel room, in my own bed. Riley was shaking me gently, "Your parents are getting here today to pick you up." I sat up quickly and saw that it was already ten thirty in the morning. "Let's go take a bath." I followed him into the bathroom, whatever happened today didn't matter, my parents were coming. My father and my mother, this was the first time I would ever meet my mother.

After Riley brushed my hair and put my back pack on my shoulders we sat in his truck bed together.

We sat for hours, Riley made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I ate it slowly watching the road for my father's car. "Do you think they'll be mad I ran away?" I asked after another hour.

"Maybe, they'll probably be happy you decided to go home." I nodded, and waited.

Another peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner and Riley started to get agitated.

"Maybe they're lost." I whispered as the colors of the sunset stained the sky.

"I'm going to go watch TV." Riley huffed and went back inside the motel room. I counted passing cars, dogs, people, but none of them were my father. When it was dark out and less people were walking by Riley sat next to me in the truck again. "Maybe tomorrow?" He said softly. I didn't answer, I started to cry, something I hadn't done in a week. "It's okay, I love you, remember?" I nodded into his chest. He picked me up and brought me back to our room.

I got up early the next morning and waited all day, but no one came.

The next few days I waited from inside the motel room, and by the next week I had given up. No one was coming to get me, Riley was the only one that loved me. When I understood that no one was coming to save me Riley's "friends" returned, but it didn't bothered me anymore. Riley was right, he loved me, he would protect me, and he was the only one that could take care of me.

**Don't worry everyone, someone is on their way!**

**Please review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**HELLO EVERYBODY! Thanks for reading and reviewing, you guys are the best people in the whole world!**

Time is a strange thing, especially when you spend a lot of it in another world. I didn't have any parents, I didn't deserve them, because I ran away. The life I led now was punishment for the family I had taken for granted, but I also understood that even if they came for me now, once they really saw what I had become they wouldn't want me anymore. I know that I wouldn't want me anymore.

Riley was my best friend, my parents, my family. He would buy me books and even take me to the library to use the computers, I wasn't allowed to go to school but if I asked nicely he would buy me old text books. My collection of Greek mythology books grew, I knew a lot of the stories by heart, and though I hated my parents I couldn't throw away their picture.

One day in the library I was looking up the story of Athena and Arachne when I noticed the date at the bottom of the screen. "It's time to go home." Riley said in the seat he kept directly behind me.

"My birthday." I whispered to him.

"What about it? Let's go." I shut down the computer and followed Riley out of the library.

"My birthday was two months ago." I continued as I got into the truck with the stack of books Riley let me borrow.

"Well, how about I buy you that geometry book that you wanted?" He said softly.

"You're the best." I exclaimed in a fake emotion I had perfected. It blew Riley's ego up and made him nice for hours, and it also protected me from any anger he had towards me. I didn't want to tell him the reason my birthday bothered me so much. I had been living with Riley for over a year, my parents had long forgotten about me and there was no way they even cared I was gone.

When I got back to our room I dropped all my books on the bed and began organizing them. Riley seemed to sense that I was still upset about my birthday and sat on the edge of my bed. "I already promised someone that they could visit you today." My stomach dropped and my mind already started pulling away from my body. "It's someone that I trust, they've visited you before, and I'm really sorry I didn't know about your birthday, so while he's here I'm going to go buy you a cake and some ice cream, some movies." That truly was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me in a year and I couldn't help but smile. "Let's go take a bath and he'll be here in an hour, and I'll be back as soon as I can. I trust him, you'll be okay." I gave Riley a huge hug, and though being alone with one of Riley's friends terrified me I knew that it meant Riley trusted me.

I tried to smile as much as I could as Riley brushed and dried my hair. "Eight is pretty old Annabeth, in a few more years you'll be able to make money for yourself." I just watched in the mirror as my hair dried and flattened out. I forced myself to actually look in the mirror and saw that I had changed a lot in the past year, my hair was a darker blonde, but it was mostly my eyes. They were a dark, dark gray, and they seemed to tell everyone the things I knew.

Riley made sure I looked perfect for whatever friend was coming and when there was a light knock on the motel room door he kissed the top of my head and grabbed his keys off the table. "I have to run some errands." He said to the man in the doorway. "If you hurt her, I'll kill you." He said in a low voice that terrified me. He went out and I could hear the truck start, but the man locked the door behind him and I was alone.

The man started small talk, then turned the television up and that was my queue to pull away from myself. Everything was fine, I hated myself, but it was fine. I focused on breathing, I thought about the myth I had read in the library just hours ago. Athena could do anything, except rescue me. Pain suddenly brought me violently back to consciousness, I pulled away from Riley's friend and he hit me hard, harder than Riley had ever hit me.

"I'm sorry." I said quickly, he grabbed my arms roughly and forced himself on me. "I'll do whatever you want but you're hurting me." I tried to reason, Riley would be mad if he wasn't happy.

"I paid for you, you do what I want you little slut." He covered my mouth with his hand and I panicked. I kicked him and bit him, I scratched and squirmed, but he was bigger and he was stronger. I chomped down on his hand and he hit me so hard my head swam for a few minutes. Just long enough for him to win, I tried to ignore him and find my way back to that place in my mind but it hurt so badly.

Just as I started to cry the door to the motel room burst open. I kept my eyes closed tight, Riley had told the man that if he hurt me he would kill him. Either way today was going to be terrible. He jumped off the bed quickly and the shouting started.

"Don't you dare touch her." A voice shouted, but it wasn't Riley. I couldn't open my eyes, I tucked my knees to my chest and continued to breathe.

"Get the fuck out of here before you get hurt." He growled, I could hear them fighting and someone cried out, and I honestly didn't know who I wanted to win. "You had better hope I never see you again." The door to the motel slammed shut but opened again just a few moments later.

"Did you just let a monster walk out of here?" A girl's voice filled the room.

"I stabbed him, he's not that kind of monster." The boy panted.

"Oh my gods." She hissed. A towel was thrown over me. "Luke stand outside and keep watch." The door closed gently and a hand touched my shoulder. "Can you hear me?" I opened my eyes slowly and saw a girl that looked like she was thirteen, she had shoulder length black hair and a black leather jacket, but she looked really worried about me. "My name's Thalia, you're Annabeth right?"

"H-how did you know that?"

"Athena told me where to find you." She said simply. "Are you seriously hurt? Can you walk?"

"Athena, my mom?" She nodded. "I can walk." She handed me my clothes and started packing up my back pack. "C-can you help me?" It hurt to bend over, but Thalia didn't seem to mind. She tied my shoes and I stood up slowly.

"Do you feel alright?" I nodded. "I'm going to take you somewhere safe, okay?" It dawned on me, Riley could have sent them. I could get in serious trouble. Thalia seemed to see what I was thinking. "Your mother told you she was sending someone to get you, when you had a picnic with Athena she said when you had the chance to run away. Your mom sent us, I promise." How could she even know about something that wasn't real.

"That was a dream." I muttered, but I couldn't think about that now. "Riley will be back soon. We have to leave."

"Okay, you can't take all these books, which ones do you want to keep?" I kept the things I started with. The things I had taken from my father's house, the door to the motel opened slowly and I froze, but it was just a boy about the same age as Thalia holding a dagger.

"Thalia we have to go before someone comes back." He rushed.

"Annabeth this is Luke, are you ready to go?" I nodded and stayed close to Thalia. She pulled out a dagger of her own and nodded for Luke to walk out of the room. "Luke make sure no one tails us, Annabeth stay close to me." We started running and after a few blocks we turned into the woods. We ran for over an hour, but the adrenaline kept me going, and the deeper we got into the woods the better I felt. "We're almost there." Thalia huffed and kept running ahead of me.

We stopped in front of a tent in the middle of nowhere and just as soon as we stepped up to it someone stepped outside. I jumped behind Thalia and she held tightly to my hand. "Where's Luke? Where did you guys go? I'm supposed to protect you, you can't just run off."

"Grover this is Annabeth, Athena said I had to get her." Thalia held me close to her side and I looked up from the ground to see a black boy only a few years older than Thalia. Just then Luke came running up behind us.

"No one followed us." He huffed. He looked at us, smiled awkwardly and walked in the tent.

"What happened to your face?" Grover asked, but the question was directed at Thalia. I felt my ears turn red and I looked back down at the ground.

"You and I can talk later." Thalia said quickly, Grover nodded and walked back in the tent just to come out with a small square of something I guess was supposed to be food because they wanted me to eat it. "It's ambrosia, it'll help." I put it in my mouth and was instantly homesick, I wanted to spit it out, but I had missed my father's cooking for so long. I must have started to cry because Thalia hugged me tightly. "Come on, let's go inside." I followed her into the tent and saw that it had enough room for three army cots and a rack of swords. Luke was snoring in his bed and I doubted a tornado would wake him.

"I'll sleep on the floor." I said quickly, I didn't want to give them a reason to kick me out.

"No, take my bed. Grover and I are going to keep look out tonight." I nodded and sat on Thalia's bed. "I'll be right outside the tent, you can talk to me whenever you want." She handed me her dagger and tucked me in. "You're safe here, I swear." I trusted her, out of all the times Riley had lied to me there was something about Thalia that I trusted. She smiled and walked outside the tent and the sound of her and Grover talking reminded me that she kept her promise to stay right outside.

"So Athena told you where to go?" Grover started kind of awkwardly.

"Yeah, I had a dream and Athena told me where to find her daughter named Annabeth. She's eight, and I don't know where she came from, she wasn't living with her parents, she was in a motel and, and"- I think Thalia started to cry. I wanted to explain to her that I was okay, it wasn't as bad as it looked, but I didn't want her to know I was listening.

Thalia and Grover talked for hours and even though I didn't know where I was I fell asleep, the last thing I remembered was Grover assuring Thalia that we would get to camp by tomorrow afternoon and Chiron would know exactly what to do.

**Please Review!**

**Kodi**


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks to everyone that has reviewed, I really enjoy reading what you have to say. Percy will be in this story, just around the same time that he comes in the Lightning Thief (probably age 15 or 16) I know that's the "movie" age but for the maturity level I need Annabeth to be at that will be more realistic. Thanks for continuing to read!**

**-Kodi**

I woke up and scrambled out of the army cot, whoever was on the bed next to me sat up, but I just grabbed my backpack and ran out of the tent. I still had Thalia's knife in my hand, but I needed it, so I just started running. I had to get back to Riley, how could I possibly think I would be safe with a group of teenagers? Maybe Riley's friend actually killed me.

"Annabeth come back!" I heard Thalia calling behind me, but I didn't look back, I just kept running. Hopefully I was running the right way, being out in the open made my heart race, Riley was going to kill me. I could still hear Thalia calling me so I knew she was following me, and it was only a matter of time before she caught up.

Every tree looked the same and I had no idea how to get back to the motel where I was safe. My parents didn't take me back after I ran away, but I knew that Riley would. I hoped that Riley would, I needed him. I would tell him that his friend hurt me, my face still hurt so I assumed that it was still bruised, I would explain that I got scared he was going to kill me so I ran away till I was safe.

Riley was going to buy me a birthday cake, he probably actually bought me a birthday cake and I wasn't there when Riley came home, he was probably worried. He was worried, he was hurt, and he loved me.

Someone grabbed my backpack and I fell to the ground. I tried to get back up and keep running but they held down. "Calm down, where are you going?" Thalia cried letting me sit up.

"I have to go back. I'm not safe out here." I rushed. I could hear Luke calling out for Thalia. "Take me back where you found me, I don't want to go with you." Thalia looked confused.

"But Athena said that she told you we were coming. Why in the world would you want to go back there?" I picked up the knife that had been knocked out of my hand and tried to hand it back to her. "That's a gift, you keep it, it's yours now."

"I had a dream a year ago that someone I pretend to be my mom wanted me to run away. It was a dream, not real. I haven't had that dream since. I have to go back, Riley protected me." I tried to explain.

"I have dreams too, I had one to come find you, and how else would I know your name?" Luke's voice was getting louder.

"Whatever, you know Athena? Take me to my mother, or take me back to Riley." I demanded. "How come my mother sent you to save me and I've never even met her? I want to go home."

"Your mother is Athena, and why the hell would you want to go back there?" Why was this so difficult for her to understand?

"Yes my mother is Athena." I grumbled. "And I want to go back because Riley is the only family I have, he's all I got, my parents don't want me anymore." Thalia looked a little defeated. I could see Luke running up to us now, and Grover wasn't far behind him.

"Your mother is Athena the goddess of wisdom."

"That's not funny." I grumbled.

"I'm not kidding, my father is Zeus and Luke's father is Hermes. All three of us are demi-gods." I ground my teeth together and started at them. Grover finally caught up with us.

"What about you, are you a demi-god too?" I snapped at Grover, he laughed a little but Thalia shot him a serious look.

"No, I'm a satyr. I'm supposed to protect demi-gods but it's kind of difficult when they run away and leave me to pack up the tent all by myself."

"You just expect me to believe that you're a satyr? I don't want to hear anymore lies, just take me back where you found me." I stood up and brushed leafs of my pants. "Or just leave me alone and I'll find my way back myself. I shouldn't have ever left." Grover pulled his sweat pants down and before I had enough time to be embarrassed I was surprised to see that Grover really was a satyr. Grover pulled his pants back up and I sat down on the ground. "My mother is a goddess?"

"Yes." Thalia answered simply. I was angry, all those stories I had studied for a year, all the wild dreams I had were true, and that truly meant my prayers went unanswered. All the miracles that Athena had performed, all the rages she had that turned people to creatures, but she never helped me.

"Take me back." I demanded, wiping away tears that betrayed me.

"Okay." Thalia's face became emotionless, but she helped me to my feet and started walking.

"Okay?" Grover blurted. "No part of this is okay! We have to get to camp, it's dangerous to be out here, and it's dangerous to go back there." Luke agreed, but they both stepped back at the glare Thalia gave them.

"We're going back, we're only a few hours away from camp we'll either get there today or tomorrow." Thalia wrapped her arm around my shoulders and we walked together with the boys behind us.

After two hours of walking we were standing back in front of the motel, I didn't see Riley's truck, but maybe he was just out looking for me. I went into our room and saw that the door was broken, I opened it slowly then stepped in. The room was ransacked, the television was broken, glass was everywhere, the closet doors had been ripped off, but all of our things were gone. I walked out of our room and saw the three of them sitting in front of the dumpster, I walked towards them trying to breathe normally.

"Are you okay?" Thalia asked standing up. I looked up to stop the tears from falling and saw the edge of a geometry text book sticking out. I climbed up on the ledge of the garbage can and saw all of my things thrown in there, I couldn't help but go through them, every single thing I owned was thrown in there, even the library books that were supposed to go back in two weeks.

"Hey, kid, get the fuck out of there." A voice shouted, someone grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the trash can, I pushed them off me and turned to the guy that yelled.

"The guy that was living in room 27, did he leave?" Thalia tried to shush me, but I ignored her.

"Yeah someone broke in and stole all his stuff, he left this morning." The guy muttered something about homeless kids and walked back into his office.

"This is all your fault." I screamed at Thalia, she seemed unfazed and that just made it even worse. "I didn't want to leave and now he's gone, he was all I had and you ruined it."

"Can you guys give us a few minutes?" Thalia asked the boys, they walked away without question and she turned back to me. "You can keep yelling at me, but we can't stand here in front of the motel, the owner is getting mad." She walked to the edge of the parking lot and sat on the curb. "Sit down." I wanted to kick her, but she knew more about my mom than I did, so I sat five feet away from her. "I'm sorry he left." She whispered.

"No you aren't." I grumbled. "You don't understand, he loved me, he cared about me."

"I'm sure he did." She said honestly. "My mom had a drinking problem, and sometimes she would hurt me. Not on purpose, but she would, and my mother loves me very much."

"She hurt you?" I slid a little closer to her.

"Yeah, I ran away, my little brother is missing, he's either missing or dead, and it's my mother's fault." I stared at the cracked street.

"I ran away too, Riley offered to give me a ride to New York. He kept me safe, but he hurt me sometimes." I admitted.

"How old were you when you ran away?" Thalia picked up a handful of pebbles and started tossing them across the street.

"Seven, but I'm eight now. Riley bought me that book for my birthday." I gestured at the geometry book still sticking out of the dumpster.

"Do you want to keep it?" I shook my head. "It's okay, my mom would hit me sometimes, especially after Jason went missing."

"Yeah." I whispered.

"Was that Riley there with you in the room last night?" My heart started to race and my face turned red. I couldn't breathe but I felt really gross, I started to pull away from my body, but I had to remind myself that I wasn't actually in danger.

"No, that was his friend, Riley was buying me a birthday cake."

"Yesterday was your birthday?" I relaxed at the change of subject.

"No it was a few months ago, but Riley didn't know so we were going to celebrate."

"See he really did love you, but the way he hurt you is different than the way my mom hurt me." Thalia glanced back at the motel room and then turned her attention back to the street. "What Riley did to you wasn't okay, what Riley let other people do to you wasn't okay either, but it wasn't your fault."

"I don't want to talk about this." I grumbled.

"I know, but if you come to this camp with Grover, Luke, and I no one will do it ever again." I sighed, I didn't really have anywhere to go now, and she knew that. "I'll tell Chiron everything, then he'll ask you some questions and it'll be over."

"How long have you been at the camp?" I wanted this whole conversation to be over.

"I haven't been yet, but Grover has been there his whole life. He explained everything to me, it'll be great we can live there until we're grownups."

"I'll go with you." I promised her. She stood up from the curb and we walked to where the boys were waiting. We started our hike and I suddenly noticed that I had my first friend, Thalia was the first person that had ever cared about my side of things, about what I wanted. "Do you think they can help me find my dad?"

"Probably." We walked for hours and after a while I started walking next to Grover and asked him about all the things we could do at camp. There was normal school stuff that everyone had to do, which I was secretly excited about, but there was also archery, and sword fighting. We could go on quests and fight real monsters, as Grover bragged about camp I could hear Luke and Thalia talking a few feet behind us. When did I get so good at eavesdropping?

"So is she okay now?" Luke asked.

"Uh, she's a good kid, but you don't just turn okay." Thalia muttered.

"I get it, you know I do, my mom has schizophrenia I think. That stuff would get ugly." Luke answered defensively.

"No you don't get it, neither of us do. Just whatever you do don't make her talk about it, ever." Luke started to protest. "Promise me, I'm serious."

"I promise." Luke grumbled.

We walked until the sun went down, but Grover assured us that it was just over the hill and we would get there before they finished dinner. We crossed over the hill and a giant wooden entrance practically appeared in front of us. As soon as we stepped through it the sounds or life erupted, people were laughing and shouting, I could smell food and even from here I could see a large bonfire down by the lake.

"Let's go get dinner, Mr. D and Chiron will be there and they'll talk to you after dinner. They probably won't talk too much because it's late so you'll talk to them more tomorrow, but since all of you already know who your godly parent is you already have your bunks." We couldn't help but smile and even though we were all exhausted we ran after Grover as he made his way to the pavilion where the noise was coming from. We saw hundreds of kids younger than me and much older than Luke and Thalia, the dinner commotion died down for only a moment before roaring up again. It must be pretty normal for people to just show up at camp, we sat at an empty table and Grover showed us how anything you want will just appear on your plate, you just had to give some away to the gods first as a thank you.

I dropped the smallest piece I could without feeling guilty in the fire for Athena, but I couldn't help but feel that hate start to bubble over. This was the best food I had ever tasted, I ate so much I was about to explode and I had no problem just falling asleep on the table I shared with my new friends, and I think that's what actually happened.

I woke up in a room full of bunk beds, some of the older girls were helping the younger ones get dressed and there was already a small line to the bathroom even though there were only seven people in the room total it was a lot of people trying to get ready in the morning.

"Your name is Annabeth right?" The oldest girl in the room asked standing next to my bed. I nodded and sat up trying to find Thalia. "I'm Melanie, I'm head counselor, but most importantly I'm your sister." I guess the look on my face gave away what I was thinking. "We're all children of Athena here, the boys live next door, you'll meet them later, but right now you have to get ready to meet Chiron and Mr. D so you can come to school with us."

"So we're actually all related?" Melanie nodded and placed a stack of stuff on a dresser next to my bed.

"Anything you might need is right there, come find me if you have any questions." I nodded and watched as she walked away and helped make sure all the kids were ready to go on time. Waited until the bathroom was empty before taking the toothbrush off the stack of things that had been left for me, I brushed my teeth and combed my hair up into a ponytail before putting on the clean clothes left out for me.

"Hey Annabeth are you ready to go?" Thalia was standing in the doorway with the same orange shirt on that had been given to me, but she kept her jeans with holes in them and her leather jacket. I followed her out of the cabin and saw that we were in the middle of a horse shoe of cabins.

"Where did you sleep?" I asked looking around.

"Over there, it kind of sucks." She pointed to a white marble building with gold trim. "I'm alone in there."

"You don't have any siblings?"

"Nope just me. Let's go to the big house, Luke is already there." We followed a path, passed a few obstacle courses and what I had to assume was the school before we arrived at a house with a wrap-around porch and white trim. I followed Thalia up the stairs but walked slower as I got closer, I really didn't want to be here of all places. But I was starting to wonder if Thalia was scared of anything as she opened the door and stepped inside.

"Hello new campers!" A man in a wheel chair called from the other room. "I'm Chiron the activities director here at Camp Half-Blood, Mr. D is the camp director and he's talking to Luke and Grover. Follow me to my office and we can talk about your time here." Thalia did most of the talking which I was fine with, she knew all the answers.

"Have either of you been diagnosed with ADHD or dyslexia?" Chiron asked and I just stared at him.

"I don't know what that is."

"Do words look funny when you try to read?" That was the problem the whole time? The whole reason I was getting bad grades? "And sometimes you do stuff and you don't know why?" I nodded. "Okay well I'll have one of our teachers test you, but it's normal for demi-gods."

"I have them both." Thalia answered, she glanced at me for a second and then watched as Chiron started writing if folders marked with our names. "While Annabeth is getting tested can I talk to you in private?"

"Of course, we're almost done." He pulled a sheet of paper out of a drawer and wrote my name and age at the top. "Annabeth I need you to take this to the school, you saw it on the way here. Do you want someone to walk with you?" I shook my head and left the big house. I knew what Thalia was going to tell Chiron and I really didn't want to be there.

I walked down the path to the school and was amazed at the new amount of freedom I had, I had spent a year in motel rooms and now I had twelve siblings, my own bed, and I could go to school. I stepped into the school building and someone was standing there waiting for me.

"Hi you must be Annabeth, I'm one of the school counselors, you can call me Mrs. Valentine." She held out her hand and I slipped mine into hers. She led me to a room that I assumed was her office and we sat across from each other in comfy chairs, she asked me questions and had me help her with puzzles, I read from story books for her and she didn't get mad if I messed up words. "You are definitely a daughter of Athena, and like almost every demi-god you have ADHD and dyslexia, but you're in the right place. We can help you read better and you have nothing to worry about, now it says here that Grover was only supposed to help Thalia and Luke get to camp, how did you get here?"

"They found me, I ran away from home and Athena sent Thalia a dream where to find me and they came to get me." I said simply.

"Does your father know where you are?" Mrs. Valentine asked causally.

"I don't think so, but I don't know where he is either." It was impossible to see what Mrs. Valentine was thinking, I couldn't tell if I was in trouble or if she was just really nosey.

"Well how long ago did you run away?" I shrugged and she smiled warmly, all the butterflies in my stomach calmed down. "It's okay you aren't in trouble, I just need to make sure your dad knows you're safe."

"I ran away over a year ago." I whispered feeling suddenly embarrassed by this fact.

"Wow, where were you for a whole entire year?" I chewed on my lip, I had a strong feeling that Riley could get in a lot of trouble if people knew that I was living with him.

"My friend, he kept me safe." I stared down at the floor, and at just that moment there was a soft knock on the office door.

"Come in." Mrs. Valentine called, Chiron opened the door and started whispering to Mrs. Valentine. She stepped outside and closed the door gently behind herself, I guess all the kids here were as good at eavesdropping as I am because all the adults were very good whisperers.

Mrs. Valentine came back in the room with a folder in her hand and sat back down on her couch. "Thalia told Chiron some things about the friend you were living with for all that time. You aren't in any trouble, but I'm going to have a police officer come and talk to you, is that okay?"

"But I don't want Riley to get in trouble." I blurted out, I suddenly hated Mrs. Valentine more than anything, she couldn't possibly understand how good Riley was. "I don't want to talk to anyone."

"I can't guarantee that Riley won't get in trouble and I'm very sorry, but the police officer will help us find your dad, and they can keep you safe too. I can also tell you that the police officer I'm going to call is your sister, a daughter of Athena, she used to go to camp here."

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" I brought my knees up to my chest and glanced up to Mrs. Valentine.

"You always have a choice, but if you want to stay here we have to find your dad and ask him if it's okay for you to go to school here." I nodded and we sat and talked for another hour, we talked about the things I liked and the different awesome things I could do at camp. She didn't bring up Riley anymore and I hated her a little less for that. Someone brought us lunch in her office and just as we were about to finish the police officer she had talked about came in.

"Hi, you must be Annabeth." She had a big smile and dark brown hair, she looked a lot like the picture I had of my parents. She pulled out Mrs. Valentine's desk chair and pulled out a tape recorder and a notebook. "I'm Stephanie, I'm just going to ask you some questions and you answer them the best you can, don't worry about anything, just answer the questions with the truth okay?" I nodded. She pressed the red button on the tape recorder and smiled at me again. "Can you tell me your whole name?"

"Annabeth Alexandra Chase." This was easy.

"How old are you?"

"Eight."

"Do you have any brothers or sisters that live with your dad?"

"I have twin brothers, Matthew and Bobby, they're two, no three." I smiled back at Stephanie, she seemed really nice.

"Can you tell me why you ran away from your dad's house?" That story was easy too.

"I got in trouble at school and my step-mom was really mad at me for getting suspended again. If I got suspended one more time then I would have to do summer school and she already had to take care of the twins and when I get really mad I would break her stuff. I didn't mean to, but I would just get really mad. So I ran away to find my mom, but that was stupid." I could feel my face turn red.

"It's okay, no one is mad at you, running away is very dangerous so we need to find something else for you to do when you get upset. You aren't stupid Annabeth." Mrs. Valentine interrupted, Stephanie agreed.

"What happened after you ran away?"

"I was walking for a long time and Riley said he would give me a ride to New York."

"Did he?" I nodded. "You have to answer with words for the tape recorder." She said softly.

"Sorry, yes he did." These questions were becoming annoying and I could tell where they were going, I wasn't stupid, they had just told me so.

"Did you ever feel scared of Riley?"

"Only in the beginning, but he was really nice most of the time. He would only be mean if I messed up, and that was my fault." Stephanie nodded.

"Did you ever know Riley's last name?" I thought about it for a moment, after a year of living with him I never did see his last name. He never used it and no one ever said it around me.

"No."

"Did Riley ever hurt you?"

"If I was bad, sometimes he hit me." I muttered. "But he wasn't bad, he shouldn't get in trouble. He would keep me safe when people came over and he loved me." I tried to explain, but I could tell by the look on Stephanie's face that she didn't understand at all.

"Would he ever touch you in a way that made you feel bad?" Mrs. Valentine asked, and even though I knew these kind of questions were coming they felt like a punch to my stomach. "We might need to take a little break Steph." Mrs. Valentine continued in a soft voice, but I forced myself to glance up at the two of them.

"It's okay." I wanted to get this over with, I pulled away from my body just enough so the pain in my stomach hardly bothered me, but I could still hear their questions. "He did sometimes." I heard myself whisper. I could hear myself telling them all the things that Riley did, and the things that he made me do back to him. Mrs. Valentine started writing things down too, but I wasn't sure why, and that wasn't important now I had to answer these questions so they would leave me alone, so I wouldn't have to talk about it ever again.

"Why did Riley have to protect you when people came over?" Stephanie asked carefully after receiving a nod from Mrs. Valentine.

"They liked spending time with me." I said simply.

"Did something happen for Riley to need to protect you?" Mrs. Valentine must have a book on how to be nosey and get the answers you want, but I heard myself telling her about Matt, and then how the truck broke down and we needed money, and then we just needed money.

"Then we got to New York." I heard myself finish.

"Did Riley drop you off somewhere?"

"My parents never showed up to get me, I waited, but they never came. Riley let people come over all the time and we lived in different motels for the year, but Riley loved me, he bought me books and took me to the library." I snapped back into my body and somehow Mrs. Valentine seemed to notice because she leaned closer.

"Did you ever talk to your parents on the phone?"

"No, when I called I always got an answering machine, or the number would be disconnected." I answered with a shrug.

"Do you remember any of the names of the motels you stayed in while you were in New York?" I rattled them off and Stephanie wrote every last one down. "What about the libraries?" I remembered all of those too. "Wonderful, I'm going to go make some phone calls." She turned off the tape recorder and stood up from her chair. "You are an awesome kid, I'm glad you're my little sister. If you ever need anything I want you to call me okay?" She handed me her business card. "I promise I will answer, no matter what." I smiled back at her jumped up to give her a hug, she left the office and I was left alone with Mrs. Valentine.

"Do you go other places sometimes?"

"Like in an airplane?"

"Almost, but your mind goes other places and your body stays there?" I nodded, how could she know? "You know that it wasn't your fault what those people did to you, and it wasn't okay. It's never okay for people to do that." I ground my teeth together and stared at the floor. "You don't have to talk, and I'm done talking about it, I just want you to remember that it's not your fault." I nodded so she would stop talking.

We went for a walk around the camp and watched as some of the older kids did an amazing obstacle course, we watched the javelin competition and I even got to pet the horses. Stephanie caught up with us as we walked around the archery range.

"I have great news, your dad and step-mom and brothers are on their way to come get you. They live in California now but they're getting on an airplane and will be here tomorrow. I'll come back to camp to get you tomorrow morning." I was excited and anxious and angry, mostly angry.

"Why didn't they answer when I called?"

"I think Riley was giving you the wrong number so he wouldn't have to give you back." Mrs. Valentine said kneeling down in front of me. That hurt, but that was probably the truth.

"Do I have to go live with them? I like it here."

"Don't you miss your family?" Mrs. Valentine asked getting another concerned look.

"I do, but I want to go to school here, I want to be with other demi-gods. My parents don't know about all this stuff." The concerned look was instantly replaced by a happy one.

"Your parents may want you to live with them for a while because they missed you so much, but I will personally come and talk with them and tell them all about the school here and how we can help you learn better. I will do my best to make sure they send you to school here." I threw myself at Mrs. Valentine, she annoyed me sometimes but she also seemed to understand me.

"Annabeth!" I heard Thalia shout behind me. She ran up and I could tell that she loved it here too. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" I exclaimed, everything was going to be fine. I didn't know Riley's last name so there wasn't any way that they were going to find him anyways. Thalia introduced herself to Mrs. Valentine, but it seemed as though she had already talked to Stephanie.

"I answered some questions that she had about how I found you, Luke did too." Riley wasn't there when they came to get me, they didn't know him at all so that was fine too. "Can Annabeth come swimming with us?"

"Of course." Mrs. Valentine answered without hesitation. "Annabeth if you need anything, or get scared, just tell Melanie and she knows where to find me. Promise?"

"Yup!" I took off at a sprint towards the cabins to get the swimming suit that had been in the stack of things that Melanie had given me. I had the most fun I had ever had and I stuffed myself full sitting at a table with all my new brothers and sisters. They even let Thalia sit with us because she didn't have anyone else at the Zeus table.

We had marshmallows around the bon fire and the older kids told funny stories about Mr. D, who sounded grumpy but not really mean. I followed my siblings back to our cabin and turned left into the girls' wing to brush my teeth and take a shower, I knew I needed to after swimming in the lake but it made me nervous, after thirty minutes of standing in the bathroom and letting other people go first, I was the only one left.

"Annabeth it's time for lights out, are you okay?" Melanie asked from the door way.

"I'm fine." I answered quickly. "Can you, could you, will you do me a favor? You don't have to, and I'm not a baby." I rushed.

"Of course I will, what do you need?"

"C-can you stand in front of the shower so no one comes in?"

"Absolutely. You can even talk to me the whole time to make sure I'm still there." I nodded and that's exactly what I did. I asked her about classes, and if Greek was a hard language to learn, we talked about horseback riding and canoe races. I got out of the shower, dried off and got dressed before pulling back the curtain. "Do you want me to braid your hair?"

"You know how?" I asked excitedly. "Yeah, I'll teach you." She towel dried my hair and combed out tangles before putting one long braid down my back. "We can practice tomorrow, right now it's time for bed." She tucked me into my bed and climbed into her own, it had been a really long day, and even though I was excited to see my dad and brothers and even my step-mom, I was exhausted and fell asleep.

**I'll try and continue to write longer chapters, but sometimes the creativity only runs for so long! I have my first class of the semester starting tomorrow but I don't have classes on Friday so theoretically I have enough time to post a chapter a week!**

**Please review!**

**-Kodi**


	9. Chapter 9

I woke up to Melanie whispering my name, "Annabeth, Stephanie is here for you." I jumped up and started to get dressed, Melanie helped me pack up my backpack and gave me a tight hug. "You come back soon, okay?" I nodded and stepped outside of the only place I had ever wanted to call home.

"How are you today Annabeth?" Stephanie asked, taking my hand and walking out of the cabin area with me.

"I have to say goodbye to my friends." I handed her my bag and sprinted to the Zeus cabin, I let myself in and instantly saw why Thalia hated it. It wasn't really a cabin, it was a temple that had a bunk added to it. "Can you come home with me?" I asked embracing Thalia tightly.

"I can't, but I'll wait here for you. I'll stay here till you come back." She promised, she made sure I had my dagger and then walked with me to Hermes cabin and woke up Luke. There were twice as many kids in the Hermes cabin than there were in any other cabin, but Luke seemed to love it.

"You come back soon okay?" He said through a yawn, but he smiled a huge smile and hugged me tightly. I felt safe in his arms, they didn't hold to tight like I would run away, but they also didn't hold awkwardly like someone was going to see. "I love you kiddo, you have to come back so I can teach you how to swing a real sword."

"I promise." I choked back tears, and they hugged me again before Stephanie stressed that I had to get to the police station in New York City so my parents could get me.

I climbed into the back of her police cruiser and watched the camp disappear into the woods. Stephanie stopped and got doughnuts and kept trying to start up conversation, but I was really nervous. There was something weird about having your parents come and get you after a year of not even talking to them, would the recognize me? Did they actually want me? I was going to be grounded forever.

The car stopped and Stephanie opened the door to let me out, but I didn't want to get out. I wanted to go back to camp, Stephanie smiled softly, but knew I wasn't going to get out so she slid beside me in the small back seat.

"You have some time, your parents won't be here for a few more hours, you get to meet your social worker"-

"I don't want to answer any more questions." I answered quickly.

"Oh no, Annabeth don't worry." She held my hand tightly. "She won't ask you questions like that she's just going to make sure that you're safe at home. I promise."

"My parents never hurt me."

"That's right, but now we just want to make sure your parents take very good care of you, and if you ever feel like you ever want to run away again then you can talk to your social worker. I think you'll like her, I picked her out myself." I stared at the police department. "Are you ready to go inside?" I nodded and she stepped out of the car, carrying my backpack with her.

Stephanie held my hand tightly and we entered the building together, she walked quickly past a room full of people, some were in handcuffs but all of them looked exhausted. We got into the elevator and Stephanie led me to a room with a table and a couch, Stephanie waited with me for my social worker and after a half hour there was a knock on the door.

"Hi, are you Annabeth?" A woman asked, stepping into the door. Stephanie jumped up and shook her hand, they talked softly for a few seconds before stepping inside and closing the door. "I'm Jenny, I'm your social worker, no one is in trouble I just want to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine." I insisted, I don't think anyone actually understood that, I was actually fine.

"Great, before you see your parents I'm going to talk to them, and you don't have to leave with them until you are ready." She sat beside me on the couch.

"Annabeth are you okay waiting with Jenny?" Stephanie asked handing Jenny my backpack. "I have to do some work, I'll be in the desk in the far corner of the room."

"Yeah." I heard myself say, but I didn't really want her to leave. I sat in the room with Jenny, and neither of us talked for hours. She didn't make me talk about Riley and other than asking if I was hungry she didn't make me talk at all. She pulled out her computer and we watched a movie, I don't even remember what it was about, but I really appreciated the fact that she let me ignore her.

After lunch Jenny's phone rang and the commotion began, Stephanie came back and played cards with me while Jenny talked to my parents. They talked forever and I had a gut feeling that Jenny was telling them every single thing that had happened over the past year.

"Did you tell my parents everything?" I asked Stephanie after I lost another hand, I had lost every single turn, but Stephanie hadn't said anything about my lack of participation.

"Jenny is doing that, we're also making sure your parents know about doctors you can talk to so you don't ever have to talk to your parents. It's going to be alright and if anything happens, even if it's nothing important and you just want to talk, you can call me or Jenny." I nodded. It was awful, I wanted to be back at Camp Half-Blood, only a few people there knew that all of this had happened to me, and those few people hated talking about it just as much as I did. "Jenny is a demi-god too, she'll help the best she can to get you back to Camp Half-Blood, but she's your social worker and that's most important."

"My parents are going to be mad." I grumbled. Stephanie held me in a tight hug and just continued to repeat that, "my parents loved me very much" over and over. I didn't pull away from her and she didn't make me get up. After another two hours of waiting Jenny came back in the room, I held Stephanie even closer as my heart beat faster, I didn't want to deal with my parents right now. I didn't want my entire life to change again.

"Your dad and step-mom are ready to see you whenever you're ready. They're waiting for you to be ready, you don't have to rush anything okay?" I nodded. "I'll wait in the hallway." I don't know why, but I started crying, it was the hardest I had cried in a year, but I also hadn't been this scared in a year.

"What do you do when you get scared?" Stephanie asked as I tried to catch my breath between tears.

"Read." I admitted simply. Stephanie opened up my backpack and pulled out my Greek mythology book marked with the picture of my dad and Athena.

"Wow, you've read this a lot." I nodded. "Let's pick a different story for today." She flipped to the chapter on Poseidon and started reading. I wasn't really listening, but just having Stephanie there made me start to feel better.

"Can you come home with me?" I asked as she finished the story of Poseidon's birth.

"No I can't, but these things that make you feel better your parent's can do too. I'll tell them that you like being read to, and whenever you find something else that makes you feel better just let them know." She glanced back at the book then closed it. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah. I think, I think I'm ready to see them." Stephanie gave me another hug and I stood up from the couch, she put my backpack on my shoulders and we walked out of the room together. Jenny smiled brightly as I stepped into the hall.

"Are you okay?" Jenny asked, looking at Stephanie for the answer. Stephanie bent down and gave me another hug.

"You have my phone number, promise you'll call me if you need anything."

"I promise." Jenny took my hand and led me away from Stephanie, I waved and she smiled. We ended up in front of another room, Jenny placed her hand on the handle and it was almost as if she opened the door in slow motion.

"Annabeth!" My dad called out, he rushed forward, but seemed to stop himself. "We love you so much." He said through a watery smile. I ran forward and hugged him tightly, he picked me up and even though I could feel him crying he seemed the happiest I had ever seen him. "I'm so sorry." He repeated over and over.

"I want to go home." I heard myself say, and I suddenly knew it was true. I hated everything that had happened in the past year and I wanted to go home with my dad and step-mom more than anything.

"You're coming home with us and everything is going to get better, I promise." I nodded and rested my head on his shoulder. I saw my step-mother standing in the corner of the room with tears in her eyes. I reached my arms out to her and even though I was eight years old they held me like I was one of the twins. I couldn't help but apologize over and over to her and I started crying too.

"Annabeth it isn't ever your fault, your father and I are here for you though, we love you very much. I'm sorry I yelled at you, I'm very sorry." She put me down and took my backpack off, Jenny motioned for us to sit down on the couch and she started talking to my parents.

"So I have a doctors' appointment set up for Annabeth in three days, she has an appointment with a psychologist the day after that, here's the paperwork from the counselor that talked to her. She has a suspected diagnosis of ADHD and dyslexia, and I'll be back in California next week when they close this case." My parents thanked her, signed some papers and accepted a sealed folder from Jenny. "I'll see you in a week, okay?" She said to me.

"Thanks." I said as she shook everyone's hand and walked out of the room.

"The police have a few pictures they want you to look at Annabeth, and then we can go home." My dad said placing a hand on my knee, I moved away slightly and he jerked back as if I had burned him. "Sorry." He said quickly.

"What do I have to look at pictures for?" I asked him. "What time does the plane leave to go home?"

"The plane doesn't leave till tomorrow morning, and we just need to look at some pictures so we can figure out why it was so hard to find you." I knew they wanted to send Riley to jail, he was going to get in so much trouble and he would be really mad at me.

"Tomorrow? Where are we going to stay tonight?"

"We have a really nice hotel, it has a swimming pool with a slide"-

"I don't like hotels." I said quickly.

"Okay, it's okay, we can talk about it when we leave the police station. Alright?" I nodded. A police officer came in and placed a folder on the table.

"Annabeth can you point at the picture of Riley?" I glanced at all the pictures for a brief moment, all the men looked a little like Riley, but there was Riley row three column two.

"Is he going to get in trouble?"

"All of these people have already been arrested."

"If I tell you which one is Riley will he go to jail for a long time?" I couldn't stop bouncing my leg up and down.

"Not necessarily, but we do need to find him so no one gets hurt." I glanced at my dad, then at my step-mom.

"It's okay Annabeth, just do your best." My step-mother said and held my hand tightly. I took a deep breath and pointed at the picture of Riley. The police officer turned the page and I glanced through the pictures again.

"He's not there." I said to the officer. He nodded and turned the page again, we went through three more pages of pictures before the officer closed the folder and thanked me, "We have some police officers that will escort you to your car, there's a few news crews outside and we want you folks to get home safe."

"You did great Annabeth." My dad said standing up, my step-mother put my backpack over her shoulder and my father picked me up again. We stepped out in the hall way and Stephanie was there smiling.

"Mr. and Mrs. Chase it's a pleasure to meet you, Annabeth is wonderful." My dad shook her hand and thanked her profusely. "I'm going to help you get out of here without getting heckled too much, Annabeth can you put this jacket on?" She handed me a huge jacket with the NYPD logo on the back. "When we step outside I'll put the hood up so we don't have any pictures of you flying around." I nodded.

We walked out to the lobby of the police department and the hood was pulled over my head. My dad held my head down and I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, the shouting was deafening outside, lights flashed and people asked all sorts of questions. When we finally made it to the car my parents had rented Stephanie smiled at me and handed me a New York Yankees baseball hat. "My mom told me that when you most need it that hat brings the best luck." I felt a smile break out on my face and thanked her. "Call me." I nodded and my dad gave her a hug before sitting me in the back seat and driving away.

The drive was quiet, but it wasn't awkward. We went out to dinner and to the movie theater, we went for a walk around central park and then to the hotel near the airport. "I don't like hotels." I whispered into my dad's shoulder.

"I know, we'll look at the hotel room, just look at it and if you want to leave we will. Okay?"

"Promise?"

"I swear." He carried me up to the room, and I kept my eyes closed the whole time. "Alright, this is our room." He said softly, I glanced around, and even though hotels are cleaner and nicer than motels, they all look the same.

"No, I want to leave." I tried not to scream, but my panic was obvious. My dad stepped out of the room quickly.

"It's okay, we won't stay here." I kept my eyes closed as he walked quickly out of the hotel. My step-mother brought their bags back into the car and we drove around for a while until the two of them decided that we would go bowling for a while, maybe even see another movie and then just let me sleep in the car for a few hours. Our flight left at six in the morning anyway so it was only a few hours away.

The night passed in a blur, and my parents did everything to keep me busy and make me exhausted and after three hours it worked. I fell asleep in the back seat of the car and woke up in the airport parking lot, we walked through security and as we waited for the plane they struggled to entertain me again.

Eventually I just pulled out my book on Greek mythology and handed it to my father to read to me. "You took this with you?" I nodded. "I looked everywhere for it, I'm glad you still have it."

"Me too." I snuggled into his shoulder and he opened it, it fell to the most viewed chapter of them all. My dad reached for the picture of him and Athena and by the way his hand was shaking I could tell he was trying not to cry.

"You know this is your mother right?" My dad said softly pointing to Athena.

"Yeah." I chewed on my bottom lip. "I-I ran away to find her." I admitted.

"I'm sorry, I should have talked to you when you asked me to." He whispered.

"It's okay. Can you read this chapter?" I flipped to where Stephanie left off and he started reading about Poseidon. My dad kissed the top of my head and I cringed, he didn't see, but I saw my step mother, who was sitting across from us, flinch. My father started reading and just as he finished the story of how Poseidon founded Athens the plane began to board.

I sat between my parents and as soon as the flight lifted off the ground my dad pulled out his laptop and played my favorite movies. This six hour flight was torture for my parents, they had no idea how to act around me now. Their main goal was to keep me happy, but they really were worried that I was a different kid in some way.

And they were right, I was a different kid, but I didn't even know who I was now. I am the daughter of Athena and Fredrick Chase, I am eight years old, I am a demi-god, but I am still lost.

** Thanks for reading everyone! It's -4 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius) with the wind chill it feels like -26 Fahrenheit/-32 Celsius. Also known as freezing cold. Since classes have been cancelled so no one gets frostbite I'll try and crank out another chapter.**

**Thanks again, please review!**

**-Kodi**


	10. Chapter 10

**This is me apologizing in advance for the short chapter, but sometimes you just write it and you can't really change it.**

Being at home was difficult, and that was the nice way of saying it, it was terrible for everyone. The real problems started when my dad went back to work, two days after they brought me back home. I understood that he had to make money, but it put a lot of pressure on my step-mother, she had to take care of the twins and me, and neither of them knew what to do with me.

I spent a lot of time reading in my room with the door closed, my step-mother would always walk by and open it again and remind me that we don't close doors in the house. Over and over until she would open it, remind me to keep it open, and tell me to come down for lunch. I followed her to the kitchen and sat down in the chair that had become mine, she placed a sandwich in front of me and a glass of soda. I stared at the sandwich and the soda, and some part of me began wondering if there was medicine sprinkled in it.

"Is there something wrong?" She asked placing food in front of the twins.

"Is there something in this?" She looked confused. "Is there any medicine in this?"

"No Annie, of course not." She said softly, I stared at the food skeptically, the food disappeared from the table and my step-mother sat in front of me and I watched her make me another sandwich, then open a canned soda and pour it into a glass. "How about you help me make dinner tonight?" She asked as I took a bite out of the new sandwich. I nodded happily and watched as Bobby threw a handful of mac n' cheese at Matthew.

I got up to return to my room, but my step-mother insisted that I read at the table. She cleaned around me and I tried to focus on my book with the sounds all around me, but the extra distractions made the words dance. I got frustrated and slammed the book shut, which made my step-mother jump.

"Are you okay?" She asked, her voice cracked. She was scared, she was terrified of me. I ignored her and went to the living room, the twins were playing with toy trains and they ignored me. They didn't really remember me, I turned on the TV and tried to get comfortable. I struggled to extinguish the constant anxiety in my stomach, I didn't belong here.

The anxiety only made my ADHD worse, and even though my parents had been dealing with it for seven years it seemed to change them now that it had a name. ADHD was the reason I behaved the way I did, so until I saw the psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the new pediatrician my parents kept their distance during every tantrum. By the time dinner came around I had flipped through all the channels on the television at least a hundred times, my step-mother had stood and watched for about fifteen minutes before accepting that this was what I was doing to avoid living.

"Annabeth, come help me with dinner." She said softly, I continued to flip through channels, my heart was racing and all I wanted was for it to stop. "Honey." She sat beside me on the couch and I could feel her eyes burning into me, she knew everything I had done. "Annabeth, look at me, please." I took a deep breath and dragged my eyes away from the television. "Let's turn the TV off."

"I-I can't." I muttered. It was true, if I gave up this then I would have to deal with what I was feeling, and I couldn't deal with that, not right now.

"Just give the remote to me. I'll deal with it, I can read you a story, or you can read the cook book, I just need you to stop with the TV." I ground my teeth together and dropped the remote in her outstretched hand. "Thank you." She turned off the TV and glanced at me. "Are you okay? Do you need to talk about anything?" She touched my hand and I jerked away.

"No I'm not okay, I don't know what's happening to me, but I don't want anything from you. I don't need anything from any of you." I shouted at her, I could see exactly how I hurt her play right across her face. As soon as the words left my mouth I wanted to take them back, but it was done and there was nothing I could do.

Matthew began to cry and relief filled her face, she jumped up from the couch and went to help the twins. I saw my moment of opportunity and started to make a sprint for my room, "No, Annabeth, you still have to help me make dinner." It was as if what I had just told her didn't matter.

I did help her make dinner, I cleaned up afterwards. Dad got home from work and I went through my new bedroom routine, my parents let me lock the door when I took showers, and after I had brushed my teeth and laid in bed my father would come in and read to me. I watched as everyone went to bed and fell asleep, but I hadn't been able to sleep for more than three hours a night since I got home.

After a week of tension and watching my parents argue about how to handle my tantrums I had a doctors appointment. There was a wonderful arrangement of tests, my blood was drawn and my vision tested, they showed me how I had grown in a year then assured my parents that I was healthy, they strongly suggested we follow up with a trauma counselor and a psychologist and a psychiatrist, but I was healthy.

I stared at my parents as they heard this news, it seemed like the best thing they had ever heard, that I was actually a normal kid and everything they had been concerned about in the last couple of days was just temporary.

The week was hectic, the day after my physical I had a meeting with a psychologist, she wasn't as nice as Mrs. Valentine, but I didn't have to talk about anything I didn't want to so I was okay with that. According to her I was going to meet with her every week unless I didn't like her, we went through a series of tests, some of them were the same as the ones that Mrs. Valentine had given me. "You do have ADHD, do you know what that means?" I shrugged. "I know you do, you are a really smart kid, one of the smartest I know. I'm not going to tell you, your father told me you like to read so here is a book on ADHD. I'm going to give you the version I give kids first and next week if you want the one that I'll give your parents just let me know." I stared at the book and even though some of the words danced I was relieved that I didn't have a person demanding something from me.

"Do I have dyslexia too?" I muttered, it was the first thing I had said in her office, but it didn't surprise her. Her face was difficult to read, she actually didn't have many real emotions she was like a book, her emotions were predictable and exactly what you would expect.

"I believe you do, but there are other specialists that can help you with that, not me." I nodded. "When you see the psychiatrist tomorrow he will prescribe you medicine for the ADHD, that, with the schedule I gave your parents, will help you sleep better. You won't be so anxious all the time, you can do this and I'm here for you."

The rest of the week was uneventful, I refused to participate in trauma counseling and therefor didn't need to stay in trauma counseling. My parents were given a list of warning signs and symptoms of various things, but as the week went on I was pulling myself back together. I started the ADHD medication, I refused to swallow any pills so it was in disgusting liquid form, and even though it made me feel weird I functioned from day to day. My step-mother read up on all the diets and exercises that had worked for other parents with children that had ADHD, I smiled more and they smiled back. I was figuring out exactly how to be normal again and every time I figured out more the less the things that had happened to me mattered.

When I was home for a month I got to go back to school, I begged my parents to let me go back and after I had been thoroughly tested by every doctor in town they found a school for kids with dyslexia among other issues.

I sat in the back of the classroom, I didn't answer any questions, and I watched other students more than I watched teachers. I still learned everything I needed to know, but I was learning something else too. By the end of my first two weeks of school I knew how to be a kid again, my psychologist could see the change, but she reminded me over and over that this was a choice I was making and when I was ready to change she would be there.

But I was normal, there was nothing I could do to change, because if I went back to the way I was I would hurt everyone that had changed their life just for me. I liked being normal, I would rather die than feel as lost as I did a simple month ago.

By the time I had camouflaged my way back into human life the events that haunted me were among the furthest of memories. They belonged in the dreams that I didn't remember and even though I woke up in the middle of the night I rolled over and went back to sleep in seconds. I was Annabeth, I was normal, everything that had happened was okay, I didn't even remember it.

**Thanks for reading, please review and I'll post another chapter as soon as I can.**

**-Kodi**


	11. Chapter 11

**Sorry I took so long, but I got a 92% on my Anthropology quiz and I think I did really well on my Child Language Development quiz! I hope you enjoy!**

**-Kodi**

I sat in history class and struggled to ignore Lauren. My parents had worked really hard to find this school and it was a great school for kids with dyslexia and ADHD, I had to talk to the school counselor once a week, and they made sure I continued to take my ADHD medicine. No matter what happened in school I tried to convince my parents that I was okay, I didn't want to be stuck at home, which brought me back to the struggle of ignoring Lauren.

I didn't have any friends at Richardson Elementary, it was a choice that I made to remain invisible, but suddenly to be invisible also meant to be someone else's victim. Lauren sat beside me, she was the kid that answered all the questions and she was the kid that every girl wanted to be friends with. Except for me, I didn't raise my hand to answer questions, I chose to sit on the steps and read during recess, and every time Lauren drew mean pictures of me I ignored them.

Until history class, it was just this week that she started kicking me under the table we shared with two other students. I was trying to read along with our teacher but every time Lauren kicked me in the shin I had to stop and count to ten, a stupid trick that my psychologist taught me so I wouldn't have tantrums, and even though I hated to admit it, it actually worked.

When Lauren figured out that kicking me wasn't working she started pushing all of her books and papers and pencils into my space. This was something that I couldn't ignore, I had ignored so much from her, but this was too much. I pushed her things out of my space and tried to count to ten, I only got to five before her things were in my space again, my heart started to race, I didn't like my space being messy.

"Stop." I grumbled.

"Oh so you can talk, I thought you were stupid." I started counting again, but at five she moved her things back to my side again.

"This isn't funny." I tried to keep my voice low, but it waivered. Everything that I had been working on since I got home six months ago was slipping away.

"What a cry baby." The girl sitting next to Lauren laughed, and as I cleared my desk of her things Lauren kicked me again before sliding a paper on to my desk. I pushed away from the table and my chair slammed to the floor, I backed into our teacher who had somehow ended up behind me.

"Let's go outside Annabeth." She said gently, her teaching assistant had already taken her place at the front of the room. My heart was racing, my hands were shaking, I wanted to reach across the table and punch Lauren in the nose over and over, I wanted to kick the table over and rip all the stupid smiling posters off the wall. "C'mon Annabeth, it's okay." I stomped through the classroom with my teacher close behind me, she closed the door gently and I started to walk away. I don't know where I was walking, but I needed to move. "No, you have to stay here." I started pacing, and I couldn't breathe. "Do you want to talk about what happened with you and Lauren?" I glared at her. "I think we need to do some breathing exercises." She kneeled down so I could look into her eyes and started counting, I just started to get frustrated.

"I can't get in trouble." I huffed.

"No one said anything about you getting into trouble, I just need to know what happened between you and Lauren."

"I don't want her to be mad at me, they all hate me." I felt tears streaming down my face and it made me angry, I don't cry, I'm not a baby.

"She still can't be rude to you, you can take as long as you want, but I need you to calm down." I turned around and without thinking I punched the wall, I did it again and again.

The school counselor dragged me through the hall and into the nurse's office, my teacher followed us and after I was sat in a chair and forced through fifteen minutes of breathing exercises. "Okay, are you feeling better?" She asked gently. I nodded and released my death grip on the plastic chair, my right hand throbbed, but I ignored it. My body was shaking and I felt exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

"Can you tell me why you got so upset?"

"Lauren was being mean." I answered simply.

"Remember how we talked about when it's okay to tell on people?" I nodded. "This is one of those times. Lauren hurt you and it's okay that you tell about it." I held my throbbing hand in my lap and massaged my knuckles.

"But she didn't hurt me in a bad way."

"Anytime anyone hurts you, even a little bit, you need to talk to someone so they can help you feel better. I think that Lauren may have hurt you in a way that's against school rules, not in a way that can get her in a lot of trouble, but we need to talk to her so she isn't mean to anyone else." I debated this for a few moments in my mind, and realized that the school wasn't going to let this go.

"She was kicking me under the table and I ignored her, but she started messing up my side of the table. I moved her papers and asked her to stop, but she didn't, she called me a cry baby. I'm not a cry baby and I just like my space to be clean, it makes me feel bad when things are messed up." My counselor nodded and listened in a way that always made me feel better, she cared what I had to say and she didn't make it a bigger deal than it was.

"Does it always make you feel that way when things get messed up?"

"My step-mom always lets me clean how I want, she helps me, but when my brothers mess my stuff up I have to do breathing." I grumbled.

"I'm proud of you doing your breathing at home, does your breathing always work?" I shook my head and her face fell a little. "What happens when your breathing doesn't work at home?"

"My brothers are little, they don't mean it. But Lauren means it, she does it on purpose." She nodded.

"I'm going to call your dad, you aren't in trouble I swear, but you hurt your hand really bad and I want you to go to the doctor." I felt a little defeated, but the nurse pulled my hand away from my lap and I saw how swollen it was. She placed an icepack on my hand and I struggled not to pull away, but it hurt really badly.

When my dad did arrive at the school, I could see he really was worried, and I felt terrible. They had taken me back into their house even though I had caused so much trouble and here I was causing trouble again. He came into the nurse's office and picked me up into a tight hug, he checked out my hand then made sure that I kept the ice on it before sitting in his own chair and listening to my counselor.

They talked about why I had gotten upset, and that was followed by all sorts of serious conversation of OCD, more diagnoses made of letters. The talk of medications, but mostly how my dad would like the situation of Lauren handled. They assured me she wouldn't get in a lot of trouble and after talking for a few more minutes they set up a meeting for tomorrow morning and put my hand in a sling with a fresh icepack so I could go get an x-ray.

The car ride to the office was painful, but boring, my dad tried to keep me distracted and offered to get me ice cream at the end of my x-ray. "You probably just jammed some knuckles and we'll get out of here in no time. I know you hate doctors, but we'll get out of there in no time." We pulled into the parking lot and I sat down in the children's corner as my dad signed me in.

"What happened to your hand?" A kid playing at a table of cars asked me. I shrugged and hoped that this wouldn't take very long, my hand hurt more and more every minute we waited. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes." I grumbled, the kid's name was called and he left me alone.

"You're going to get called in really soon." My dad whispered, he placed his hand on my thigh and I jerked away. "I'm sorry, I always forget that bothers you." He said, mostly to himself.

"It hurts a lot." I answered, changing the subject.

"I know, you probably broke your hand, but once they get an x-ray and fix it up you can have some medicine to make it hurt less." I must have made a strange sound. "I know it's just a bad day. I'll make sure it's liquid medicine, I swear." I glanced down at my hand in a sling, it was already an array of colors, definitely broken. "Please don't punch anymore walls. I know when you get upset you need to do things, but I would rather you break things and scream and throw tantrums than hurt yourself."

"I didn't mean to hurt myself." I said quickly, but as soon as it left my mouth I knew it was a lie. When everything was happening, when the world was exploding around me I hit that wall as hard as I could, I put all my frustrations and emotions behind it and when I hit that wall everything went away.

"I know, I just don't like it when you're hurt." He offered his hand for me to hold and I gripped it as hard as I could.

"Annabeth Chase." A nurse called, my dad stood up and we followed the nurse into the hall. "Alright we're going to get our x-rays out of the way first." My ugly looking hand was laid on the table in positions that brought tears to my eyes and then it was put back in the sling and I was led down the hall again.

An hour later I was back in the car with my dad, with a purple cast holding my broken hand together. We stopped at a pharmacy on the way home and my dad picked up the liquid pain medicine that the doctor had explained tasted horrible and couldn't understand why an eight year old couldn't swallow pills.

When I got home my dad pulled out all my favorite movies and set up pillows and blankets on the couch. I choked down the medicine and before I could panic about it making me drowsy I fell asleep. I woke up at dinner time and struggled to balance spaghetti on a fork with my left hand.

"I don't like that medicine." I told my dad as he measured out my ADHD medications into syringes.

"Your hand is going to hurt a lot if you don't take it." He answered simply.

"It makes me tired, I don't like medicine that makes me go to sleep." He poured a glass of juice to get the medicine taste out of my mouth.

"You know you're safe here. You can even sleep in our room if you're worried, but I want you to take the medicine the doctor gave us. I'm not going to make you take it, but it will make you feel better." I reluctantly took the pain medicine with all the others before going to play with the twins. I listened to our parents talking in the other room, mostly about the things my counselor said, then about the real problem.

"Maybe we can homeschool again? She doesn't need bullies, she needs friends."

"She won't get any friends at home with a tutor." My step-mom reasoned. Was she actually on my side? "But being bullied won't fix anything." My heart started to sink.

"Well, a new school then?"

"Like what? We searched the country for schools that could help her, we can't afford to move right now."

"Boarding school?" My dad threw out there.

"She was gone for a year, she'll think we're sending her away." My step mom said softly. "She needs to know we care, not that we think she's a problem."

"That's not what I meant." My dad was furious. "She's my kid, how could you even imply that?" His voice was raising, they hardly argued anymore, but this was going to get serious.

"I love her too, but that's just how she would feel. We'll look into schools, Annabeth is too smart for either of us to teach at home, we'll get her switched out of that class for now, and just look at new schools, okay?"

The two of them came in to get the twins showered and ready for bed and I started my extensive bedtime routine. My body felt sluggish and exhausted, but I didn't have to go to school the next day.

I slept through most of Friday and my hand didn't hurt nearly as much after the weekend, my dad let me stop taking the medicine and I was allowed to go to school on Monday. Before I jumped out of the car I leaned in to hug my dad.

"Now listen, your step-mother and I tried really hard to get you changed out of your class, but it takes a while. If that girl bothers you, you just need to tell a teacher, okay?" I nodded, but I could tell from his face that he knew I wasn't going to tell anyone if she did bother me. "I love you." He smiled warmly and I knew that even though I wasn't going to tell on her he would forgive me.

"I love you too, see you after school." I jumped out of the car and started the familiar walk to the library, all the books you could read, I luckily had a large stack over the weekend with my broken hand, but it was time to return them and get new ones. I pulled all five out of my backpack and dropped them on the counter.

"Hi Annabeth, I missed you on Friday." The librarian said in a gentle voice, out of everyone on campus that knew of me, she and my teacher were probably the only ones that heard me talk on a regular basis.

"I broke my hand and had to stay home." I held up my purple cast to show her.

"Oh no, that's terrible. How'd you break your hand?"

"It was an accident." I said simply, she didn't press me for further answers.

"Are all your friends going to sign it?"

"Who would sign it?" I asked watching as she placed all my returned books on a cart.

"I will, if that's okay with you?" I nodded and watched as she pulled out a silver permanent marker. She wrote a quote from Dr. Seuss and a nice smiley face before signing her name at the bottom. "Hurry up and pick out the books you want, school's about to start soon." I started my normal circling of the library and found five more books with the intention to finish them by next Monday.

I walked into my classroom just as the bell rang and my teacher greeted me with a smile. "How are you feeling today?" She asked after I had placed my backpack in its cubby.

"Better, can I have the homework that I missed?"

"Of course, and I moved your seat away from Lauren. If she bothers you please tell me." I nodded because I knew that was the answer she wanted and went to find my new desk.

Surprisingly having my desk at the other side of the room fixed everything for a few days, no one bothered me and all my new table members ignored me, which I was very comfortable with. I started a new medicine for my OCD, it made me jittery, but my parents had this idea that with enough medicine I would be normal again.

Everything was going well until I was actually switched into a new class, it changed the way Lauren saw me. I guess I was actually a threat to her in some way because a week after being in my new classroom she cornered me at recess and took my library book from my hand. She tore the pages out, one by one. My heart began to race again, I watched as the book was destroyed in front of me, I squeezed the hard plaster cast on my right hand, my dad was really worried when I broke my hand.

Lauren threw the book into the dirt, and I just watched, counting to ten over and over, it became a mantra that kept me focused until she pushed me against the brick of the school. I saw her lips moving as she talked to me but all I felt were her hands on my upper arms pinning me to the school, but it wasn't her, it was some man that usually only haunted my dreams.

The panic escalated so quickly I became a victim of instinct and swung out with my casted arm. I saw Lauren crumple in front of me, but I couldn't stop, some part of me was convinced that she was going to hurt me and the only way to stop her was to protect myself.

I swung and swung and it wasn't until hands behind me lifted me away that I saw Lauren was crying and her mouth and nose were bloody. I was carried to the office and left in a room with the school counselor, I tried to explain that I hadn't meant to hurt Lauren, I thought Lauren was going to kill me. There was nothing I could say that would make what had happened any better.

My cast counted as a weapon, my impulsivity was dangerous.

I was expelled.

**Thanks for reading everyone! Please review!**


	12. Chapter 12

**I love all your reviews sooo much, I just feel really bad that I can't respond to all of them because of some personal settings people have on their profiles and some people aren't logged in so,**

**Guest: Thanks for being the first person ever to review! "I hope you got over it eventually" That's a weird thing to say, you don't just really get over it, but I'm assuming you said it with good intentions. Thanks for your review!**

**Anonymous: (chapter 6)Thanks for your review! Riley tricked her, Annabeth's parents would be there in a heartbeat if they knew where she was, but Riley is evil. Thanks for reading!**

**Ramona M. Miranda: I love your word choice! SHIZAM! I will try and keep up with this fanfic to the best of my abilities, and I'm doing "better" but if I explain how much my life has changed because of my experiences when I was seven then I'll give away half the fanfic! Please keep reading!**

**Alexis: Thanks for your review I will update as soon as I can and more often than not at least once a week! Thanks for your kind words but you don't need to feel sorry, you reading "my story" means a lot. **

**Thanks again everyone!**

**-Kodi**

While I was out of school I had counseling twice a week, my parents tutored me as they searched the west coast for a school that could support me. It seemed the longer I stayed in counseling the more diagnoses they could give me and by the time that my cast was cut off I was on three more medications bringing the grand total to six. One for depression, one for anxiety, one for OCD, another for ADHD, one for a mood disorder, and the last was for a strange twitching that had started.

After a very stressful month for my parents they sat me down at the kitchen table. "We know how difficult it has been for you these past three months at home, and I hope you understand that your step-mother and I love you very much." My father stressed holding a folder in his hands.

"I know, and I love you too." I replied honestly, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from that folder.

"Well your father and I have been looking for a new school for you, with the help of your psychologist." I nodded and my shoulders made a quick shrug, a twitch that I had no control over.

"Well the good news is that the school we found is very close to home, only forty-five minutes away, the bad news is that you can only come home on weekends." My father placed the folder on the table and opened it with shaking hands. "This is the Carlton School for Girls, your step-mother and I have been there a few times just to make sure that it is right for you." They both stopped and looked at me.

"So I'll live at school during the week and come visit on weekends?" I tried to keep my voice even so they wouldn't get worried.

"It's the best school we could find." My father said with a weak smile. "We couldn't find a school that could help with your dyslexia that was close enough or let you live at home part time. All the rest were full-time boarding schools and weren't even close to as good as Carlton."

"It's because I got expelled isn't it?" I asked as my anxiety rose, I wanted to see what was in the folder, but I knew asking for it would make it seem like I wanted to go.

"It was harder to find a school that would accept you because you were expelled, yes." My step-mother said, sliding the folder out of my father's hands. I twitched again, but we all pretended like it never happened. "But we want to make sure you understand that we are doing this in best interest of your education, we would never ever send you away."

"I know that." I said quickly, I didn't want them to feel guilty that I had gotten myself kicked out of school. "When do I have to be packed by?" I watched as most of the anxiety left the two of them.

"You don't have to think about that yet, let's look at all the good things at this school." My dad eagerly pushed the folder in front of me and the two of them spent the next thirty minutes talking about debate teams and gifted classes. They had seen the dorm that I would be staying in and I only had one person that I had to share my bed room with. There were sports and clubs and field trips to all sorts of exciting places. "How do you feel about all of this? And be honest Annie, we won't make you do anything you don't want to do."

"I like going to school, and I'm sorry I got expelled. This is where I have to go if I want to go to school?"

"No you don't have to do anything, you would have to be homeschooled for a little while until we can find the money to move or send you to another school. So your options are Carlton or homeschool." I read each page in the folder and I could feel the waves of anxiety radiating from my father.

"I get to come home every weekend?"

"And holidays, we'll come pick you up at four on Friday and drive you back to school after dinner on Sunday." I put everything back into the folder neatly. "So, what do you think?"

"I'll go to Carlton, if"- The tension in the room escalated quickly. "You promise to call every single day, and you'll answer every time I call." A smile broke out across both their faces, and I smiled because they smiled.

"I swear." My dad said closing the folder, my step-mom stood up opening her arms for a hug. I jumped up from the table and hugged her tightly because that's what I knew she wanted.

"We will call you every day before bed, how's that?" My step-mom asked resting her hand on the top of my head.

"That's great, how soon do I have to be packed up?" I gently pulled away from her embrace, so she wouldn't be offended.

"Well it's already Wednesday so it would be silly to start school this week, can you wait till Monday?" I nodded, there was so much I had to get done and I was secretly excited to get a break from the concerning glare of my parents. I loved them with every cell of my being, but I didn't want them to be so worried.

The rest of the week was wonderful, my parents seemed to a have lifted a weight from the house, I was going to school and the school had the ability to deal with my needs. There were doctors there and people that could help me and they didn't have to send me away, we would see each other every week. By the time the weekend rolled around my parents had finally accepted that I was leaving to some extent and hand begun helping me pack up my bedroom. I wasn't allowed to take a ton of personal belongings, things like a school uniform and toiletries would be provided so I only had to think of pajamas and books, all the books I could fit into a suitcase.

My dad did end up putting a weight limit on my book suitcase, he had to be able to lift it without throwing out his back, so we came to a compromise and I could always come home and exchange books out anyway. I packed all the things I cared about, especially the framed picture of my dad with Athena.

By the time Sunday rolled around I was anxious to see the school that I had done a lot of research about. I had read the folder of information they had given my father ten times and had seen every inch of their website, I knew the map of campus like the back of my hand and had already figured out the most efficient way to get to all of my classes. We had a meeting with the school counselor that night, someone that I had sessions with once a week, but had to check in with every weekday. We were running a little late which made me anxious, but my father kept reminding me over and over that it was nothing to be worried about. Bobby was throwing a small tantrum because Michael had stolen a truck that was supposedly his, but my dad ignored the screams and buckled him into his car seat. He took the car from Michael and put it into his pocket, causing him to start screaming, but my dad then picked him up too and buckled him into his seat. There was now a harmonized chorus of screams through the car, but I was too excited about my new school to care about the twins crying.

After an hour in the car we pulled into a group of familiar buildings surrounded by a high gate. My father pulled the car into the gate entrance and rolled down his window to talk to the security guard. After a few short exchanges the car pulled into a small parking lot, a woman about the same age as my step-mother stood there with a large smile. "Hi, my name is Ellie, I'm your RA, I live on your floor and can help you with anything you need. Everyone is excited to meet you, are you ready to move in?" I nodded and shook her hand politely.

"Where do we go to meet with the Mrs. Kinsler? She's the school counselor that Annabeth is going to be working with."

"The counseling office is in the Student Union, that's a block that way to the right." I replied automatically. Ellie smiled widely.

"Annabeth is right, I see you already know your way around school so how about we just get you moved in?" I nodded, trying to remove myself from the awkward situation that I had just created. I helped my parents move my things into the elevator and then we reached the fifth floor and moved into my bedroom.

"Mrs. Kinsler thought it would be a good idea for Annabeth to have her own room for the time being, so this is just temporary." Ellie said opening the door to my dorm room, there were two beds, two dressers, and two desks with small bookcases cut into their sides. "We had a student move and her spot will be filled at the start of the new semester." I glanced at my parents but they looked away quickly, some serious bargaining had to have been done for me to start school in the middle of the semester. Michael and Bobby had started playing on the beds, but no one stopped them so I opened up my suitcases and began unpacking. It was slightly amazing how few things I actually brought, the dresser was full of school uniforms already and so I just added the few pieces of clothing that I really needed. I filled my bookcase, desk, and top of my dresser with books and then helped my dad make my bed just the way I like it.

"Alright all settled in, are you ready for that meeting with Mrs. Kinsler?" I shrugged. "What's wrong, you don't have to go here, we can go home right now." My dad rushed pulling a now empty suitcase closer to him, as if he would pack it right back up again.

"No, I want to go to school here." I rushed. "I just hate new counselors." I grumbled under my breath. "Do I have to see her?"

"Yes, they want to make sure you're doing okay. Since you got expelled from your old school that want to make sure you're okay." I ground my teeth together, I had tried to explain it to handfuls of people that Lauren had grabbed me, she had scared me, and that I didn't mean to hit her with my cast, and that once I started I just couldn't stop. But the facts were that I had broken her nose and chipped her tooth, I was a danger to normal kids.

I pouted through the entire consultation with Mrs. Kinsler, but she seemed to anticipate this. My parents handed over all my medications and went over my daily schedule and diet, they talked briefly and quietly about trauma counseling then moved on to aggression issues and being a danger to others. After a forty-five minute meeting of everyone basically ignoring me Mrs. Kinsler asked my parents to leave and I was left sitting in front of her alone. "So what do you think of Carlton?" She asked leaning closer.

"It's alright." I grumbled.

"Yeah? Your parents told me you really like history." I nodded. "I'm going to meet with you twice a day, after breakfast and before dinner, just check-in and check-out, five minutes tops. Once a week, on Fridays before you leave we'll have one-on-one sessions where we actually talk about the hard stuff. You have to come in because I give you your medicine every day, so you can't miss our meetings." I felt my shoulders fall in defeat.

"I don't know you." I answered shortly.

"I know, but we have a ton of time to get to know one another, no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do." I nodded at her words, and she let me go out to my parents. We all went to dinner together in the mess hall and I was sure to smile a lot so my parents would be excited about leaving me at school, but by the end of dinner I knew it was time for them to get back in their car and drive away.

The idea of them leaving made my palms sweat and my heart race, but I fought it down and hugged each of them tightly before they climbed back in the car and drove through the gate that separated campus from the rest of the world. Ellie led me back up to our floor and explained all the rules about lights out and when we could watch TV, who had what chores and how I could come to her at any time of the night or day with any kind of problem. I got to meet everyone that lived on my floor and they all seemed nice enough, they came to check out my room and showed me theirs and even though I didn't really want any new friends I could tell that most of them were going to try and be friends with me.

I was in bed by curfew and read until lights out, I stared at the picture of my dad and Athena and began to wonder if Camp Half-Blood really did exist. All the other demi-gods claimed to have dreams of their parents on a semi regular basis, but I hadn't dreamt of my mother in almost two years. I thought it over for a few minutes, but decided I didn't know enough about Athena to actually know how the dreams were supposed to work.

I read through my new school books until the lights in the hall dimmed, I turned off my room light and set my alarm to make sure I had enough time to get up in the morning and get ready for my first day. I was going to graduate from this school, I couldn't be sure Athena still wanted me, and so I wasn't going to count on her keeping me safe anymore. Maybe godly parents could only send you to camp once and after that you had to save yourself, either way I didn't need to worry my Earth parents anymore. They had enough bills and grey hairs to last them a lifetime and the twins hadn't even started school yet.

When my alarm went off in the morning I jumped out of bed, made it up again, grabbed all my toiletries and my new uniform and walked down the hall to the bathroom. It was empty, which I had hoped for, I took a shower and just as I was getting out of the shower other girls were waking up, I dried off and pulled on my new school uniform. Other girls from my floor started filing in just as I was brushing my hair and teeth, I gathered up my things and walked back to my room and spent the next fifteen minutes making sure my uniform was exactly to the code stated in the handbook. I was invited by the girls that live next door to walk to breakfast with them and after making sure my backpack had everything I could possibly need, I followed them to the mess hall.

I was sure to eat a nice healthy breakfast, I had to be in top shape, it was my first day of school. The day I needed to make a good impression, but still be in the shadow enough that I wouldn't stand about among my peers. I pulled out my schedule of classes and timed it just right so I couldn't spend more than six minutes in Mrs. Kinsler's office before class. I walked into her office and she placed a piece of paper in front of me, it had five questions on it, with the numbers one through five beside each question. "I need you to read these out loud for me." She said simply.

"How did you sleep?" I circled the four. "Did you have a good breakfast?" Five. "Are you motivated today?" Five. "Do you have all your supplies?" Five. "How good do you think your day is going to be?" Five. Mrs. Kinsler looked over my answers and nodded.

"I'm glad you are so excited for your first day! What do you consider to be a five for sleep?"

"I like dreaming, good dreams, they make me happy when I wake up." I said simply. She nodded and smiled then opened a safe beside her desk and handed me all my medications for the day and a cup of water.

"Why do you take liquid medicine?"

"I can't swallow pills." I said simply emptying each syringe into my mouth and swallowing them quickly. They tasted horrible, but I would rather do this for the rest of my life than swallow another pill. I washed it all down with the glass of water and smiled at her. "Can I go now?"

"Yes, I'll see you before dinner okay?" I nodded and picked my back pack up and walked to my first class at my new school. I walked out of the Union and towards the academic buildings around the quad, the sun hit my face just right and I blended into a group of girls dressed just like me.

I smiled, and for the first time I actually meant it.

**Please review! Reviews make me smile**

**Thanks for reading, Kodi**


	13. Chapter 13

**Thanks for reading! Life's about to change for our Annabeth Chase **

Carlton had been the answer my parents and I were looking for in a month I was in the top five percent of my class and Mrs. Kinsler said that emotionally I was improving by leaps and bounds. I was finding things I was great at again and I somehow even ended up making friends, we were all in archery club together, something I found out I was good at when we tried it in physical education.

After our two week Christmas break, just as Mrs. Kinsler and my parents had warned me would happen, I had a roommate move in with me. I wasn't used to sharing my personal space like this, but I didn't bother me in the way everyone worried it would. It did make me anxious to suddenly see clutter, but it was only on her side of the room, and she wasn't even messy. But after a two weeks of living with her everything was okay, she even joined archery club.

Two months at Carlton changed the way my family worked, the tension that I was going to run away, or break everything as soon as something upset me, was gone. My parents trusted me to be alone for hours and even watch the twins when they weren't in the room. The way things worked now compared to the way they were before was something close to all my hopes and dreams coming true, I could feel that deep down, I had a family that loved me and I loved them back.

I didn't care if there actually was a Camp Half-Blood or not anymore, I had everything I needed. I could sleep through the night, I could hug my dad, I had friends and a family, and everything was just the way I needed it to be.

After a wonderful weekend of celebrating the twin's birthday my parents dropped me off at my dorm and I got ready to go to class on Monday. I told my roommate about all the cool things Bobby and Michael got for their birthday, I mentioned how old they were getting and how weird it was that they were starting school next year. She told me about her weekend, she went home on weekends too and she had gotten to go to Disney. She showed me the pictures and the shirt her mom had bought her and promised me that one day we would go together.

I fell asleep confident that I would do really well on my math test, positive that I would do great at archery practice, and sure that I had truly made a turn in my life. I woke up feeling just as wonderful, I took my shower before everyone else as usual and walked down to breakfast with my roommate. I filled out my expectations quiz for the day and took all my medicine, I smiled at Mrs. Kinsler and she smiled back. I aced my math test and the pop quiz my evil science teacher gave, everyone knows you never have a pop quiz on a Monday, but no one at Carlton liked her so I guess she had nothing to lose.

Monday was perfect, just as I predicted, and it wasn't even over yet. I went to lunch and then finished my day with study hall before I had the free time to relax and read in the library. I checked out with Mrs. Kinsler making sure to emphasize how wonderful my Monday had truly been, and maybe that was where I jinxed it.

I took all my medicine again and went to dinner, I hung out with my friends and we walked to archery practice together. It was raining outside so we were going to stay in the gym, it was a wonderfully rigorous practice to go along with my perfect Monday. I was feeling so good that it didn't even bother me that my roommate and I were asked to clean up after practice and do a little maintenance on all our equipment. Just as I we were about to put the last of the bows in and lock up the closet a group of cheer leaders came into the gym.

"We're supposed to leave the gym empty before we return the key." My roommate whispered slightly confused. I shrugged and stared at them a little more, we didn't have cheerleading at Carlton, I was almost positive of that.

"Excuse me." One of the cheerleaders called as she walked closer. We turned to greet them, but the closer the three cheerleaders got the more distorted their features became. "We're new here and were told that there's cheerleading practice at this time. Do you know anything about that?"

"No, but we can't leave while people are still in here." My roommate muttered, she was obviously confused, but I couldn't take my eyes off these cheerleaders. "I didn't know we had a cheerleading team." They started up some simple conversation, and the cheerleader closest to me, the one I kept staring at every few seconds, suddenly turned to me. Her eyes flashed red and I could have sworn that her hair set on fire. I jumped back grabbing my roommate's arm and even though she protested I saw a knowing smirk on the faces of the cheerleaders.

"We have to go." I said quickly.

"O-okay, sorry we couldn't help with cheerleading, but we really have to close up the gym." I watched as their forms changed entirely, one bronze leg, one that of a donkey, claws, pale skin with deep red lips, and even darker eyes, their hair up in flames.

"Demi-god." One of them hissed. I shook my head, I backed up until the stone wall stopped me. My roommate seemed to enter a state of stupor, there wasn't anything I could do. "We didn't expect to see anyone here, especially not a daughter of Athena."

"What are you?" I choked out, praying someone would come help me. I could handle all sorts of situations, but I knew nothing of fighting actual monsters. Like those that live under your bed.

"Empousa of course, and lucky you we only drink the blood of males. This is our first school, it was a small test, but think of how popular we would be if we went back home and told everyone how we destroyed a daughter of Athena." I felt a lump rise in my throat, I glanced over at my roommate and knew that she wasn't really seeing what I was seeing.

"Don't you know anything? She can't see us, the mist protects us from the eyes of mortals. You might be the dumbest daughter of Athena around, especially because you go to school here and not and that stupid camp."

"You know about the camp?" I sputtered. I needed a plan. I needed time to think.

"Everyone knows about that bloody camp. Where they train brats like you, just so you can strut around with a weapon and stab every moving thing you see." I nodded. And my hand tightened around the few arrows I still held in my hand.

"Yeah I was there once for a few days." Their claws raised and I lunged forward with the arrows. I attacked the leader quickly and even though stabbing her with the arrows had absolutely no effect I tackled her to the ground and pulled off her bronze leg.

My roommate started screaming and I swung that leg at anything that came near me, after a few swings I came into contact with one of the empousa, and the screams got louder as she exploded into dust. Confidence swelled within me as the two remaining empousa glared at me for extinguishing their friend.

The one legged empousa was still on the ground, but the other seemed to be looking for a point of attack. It was obvious which one she was going to take and so I countered it easily and hit her in the back with the leg. She exploded as well and I turned to the remaining empousa.

"You don't know enough to survive in our world. You're weak, and you are nothing." She dug a clawed hand into the court floor and I watched as fire erupted from the ground. The bronze leg disintegrated from my grasp, but the fire just grew.

"Oh my god, Annabeth what have you done?" My roommate cried, I stared at her with my mouth open. The fire spread faster than humanly possible and just as we ran out of the gym the flames taken over everything and the fire alarm rang through the building. Teachers and staff swarmed around quickly and soon enough there was a team of fire fighters trying to contain a fire that was nothing short of magical.

"What happened?" The teacher we were supposed to give the key to the equipment closet to asked. My roommate began speaking without hesitation, and even though it was interesting to hear what she saw happen, none of it was true. "How did this fire start, Annabeth?"

"I don't know. Those new girls attacked me and I didn't have a chance to come get a teacher. I think one of them started it, or they had a friend do it." I tried to make it sound normal, if I told them the truth I would get diagnosed with something else before the sun even set.

"No Annabeth set the fire."

"No I didn't, how could I have possibly set a fire in the middle of the gym?" She seemed stumped with the question, but insisted that I had set the fire even though she couldn't explain how in the world I had done it.

I was quickly walked to Mrs. Kinsler's office and after a few minutes of awkward staring a fireman came into the office and asked me question after question. I knew that my roommate was somewhere spewing how this was my fault and I had set the magic fire that had eaten the building in record time, but there really wasn't anything that I could say that would protect me.

By the end of the night my parents were sitting in the office with me, listening to me recant my version of what happened again. As I mentioned the three cheerleaders I was interrupted by a vice principle, "There aren't any new students and there isn't a cheerleading team. There aren't any students in the infirmary either, and from the way your roommate made it sound you beat them up pretty good. But that whole thing about kids attacking you isn't true so just tell us how the gym caught on fire." I was stuck, they had set the fire, I could blame them, but suddenly they were gone without a trace.

"I don't know how the fire started." I muttered.

"If you don't know then we have to believe the other version of events. We'll take into account that you both are responsible, but this is serious Annabeth." Mrs. Kinsler said softly. "I don't understand what happened." She continued. I just shrugged. "You were having a wonderful day." I nodded. "Have you ever played with fire?" I shook my head.

"This isn't the whole story, but it was one of the two of them. We'll punish them both." The vice principle said honestly. "While the investigation is ongoing you are suspended indefinitely, and I will prepare you that you will most likely be expelled for over a year and beginning a search for alternative education wouldn't hurt." I dropped my head into my hands.

Everything that I had worked so hard for was gone, just like that, and it wasn't my fault this time. The office emptied of the vice principle and fire chief, and I was left in front of my parents and Mrs. Kinsler.

"Annabeth I know you aren't an arsonist, you can make all this go away if you tell the truth." I shrugged, the truth wouldn't help at all. I began to cry and my dad got up to go pack up my dorm room.

"It's okay Annabeth, we are disappointed in you, but we can fix this." My step-mother said carefully. "We know you aren't telling the truth and that's what we are upset about, but there are other schools out there. You haven't made us love you any less." I nodded, and I knew they were telling the truth, but the empousa had said that I wasn't ready for their world and the longer I sat in that office the more I remembered seeing monsters. They were everywhere, flashes of distorted monster faces making me do a double take every time, but when I looked again there was a just a knowing smirk looking back at me.

All of those strangers could tell I was a demi-god, but my ignorance had kept me under the radar until now. Something about my life had kept me from that world, stopped me from hearing the whispers of my mother, from dreaming of her. I wasn't going to say anything else today, I had been so full of energy before, so excited and ready for the world. But the fight had drained everything from me, my parents led me out to their car when they finished talking to Mrs. Kinsler.

A prescription was slid across the table to keep my anxiety low and help me sleep just for the next few weeks and even though I didn't want it, I was going to take it so they wouldn't worry. We picked up the prescription on the way home and after I showered and got ready for bed I swallowed the syringe full of a thick foul tasting syrup and went right to sleep.

The next morning I woke up in my bed in my parent's house, it was a Tuesday and I should be getting ready for class, but I was at home. It took me a few minutes of glancing around to remember that I had been expelled again, I felt mostly disappointed about the whole thing. I had done everything right this time and someone else had gotten me in trouble, I shrugged it off and took a shower, then got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.

My dad had already left for work and my step-mother explained that he was going to pick up the rest of my things from Carlton this afternoon. I nodded and ate breakfast, then took my medicine, the twins woke up and seemed excited that I was home, like it was some kind of surprise and after they finished breakfast they tried to get me to come play with them, their mom stopped me.

"Nope you have school work you need to finish." She said as I tried to leave the kitchen table. She pulled out a stack of books and packets of work. "What do you want to start with?" I just shrugged, but I was a little less upset that I would have something to do every day and I wouldn't get behind in my studies. "Okay well then let's start with social studies, and then we'll do math, then science?" I nodded. "If you need help just let me know, and before you move on to a new subject I have to check all your work alright?"

"Thank you." I whispered. I saw a smile break on to her face and she was obviously less worried about how I was handling being expelled. The day went by rather smoothly, and even though I really missed my friends I missed Carlton more. I fit in there, I had to work to be the smartest and I really could have a life without pretending about everything. Being back at home I had to always be conscious of how my actions appeared to my parents, I couldn't get frustrated, I couldn't get caught up daydreaming, and if something was seriously bothering me I had to pretend to be taking a walk around the block instead of having a panic attack in our backyard.

It only took two days for my parents to get a phone call from Carlton confirming that I had been expelled for two years, and two hours after that phone call there was a small knock on the door. "I've got it." I shouted through the house, I peeked through the small window surrounding the front door and froze. A clean cut man in a wheelchair beside Jenny my social worker, I had done it now. They were going to send me to juvie for arson, I could feel it, but I couldn't stop staring at the man in the wheel chair, I recognized him.

"Who's at the door Annabeth?" My step-mother shouted from the other room.

"I think I'm getting arrested." I called back. She rushed out to the front hall and I stood protectively in front of the door.

"Is it the police?" My step-mother tried to reach around and open the door. "You're being ridiculous, who is it?"

"Jenny, she's coming to take me away." I insisted holding on to the door handle.

"No she isn't." I stared her down for over a minute. "Jenny." She shouted through the front door.

"Yes? Is something wrong?" She called back.

"Annabeth is concerned that you are coming to take her away." She shouted, I knew I was right, why else would my social worker be here? "Can you please explain to Annabeth why you come by today?"

"Of course, as you know I get notified whenever you may need my help. So I was sent the report when you got expelled, I know you really enjoy school and you were doing so well at Carlton so I made a few phone calls and found what I believe is the perfect school for you." It was quiet for a few moments.

"See? Annabeth can we let them in now?" I backed away from the door slowly and my step-mother let them in. She apologized quickly and led them to the kitchen offering drinks and snacks. I shuffled in behind them and stood in the doorway to the kitchen, there were folders spread across the table and my step-mom was talking to the man in the wheelchair. "This is all wonderful, Fredrick should be home in fifteen or twenty minutes I hope you can stay."

"We're here for Annabeth, we'll be in town for a week and you can call us whenever you need us. Right now we have the rest of the day to explain our school to you." The man said with a warm smile. "We've had many students with Annabeth's record of expulsions and have had complete one-hundred and eighty degree turns. I truly believe Máthete Academy is what Annabeth needs, and honestly we need Annabeth she is a very bright child that can help us better our program."

"Annabeth come sit here and let me know if this is something you are interested in." I dragged my feet all the way to the kitchen table and took a seat letting my eyes fly over the folders and pamphlets, I suddenly recognized where this man was from and what these were all pictures of. I glanced up at Chiron and saw his eyes twinkle.

"I love it, I want to go. When can I go?" My step-mother suddenly seemed wary of the idea.

"Well Annabeth your father and I need to talk about all this first, I don't even know if we can afford it and where is this school located?"

"We're in New York, and Annabeth has a scholarship." Chiron said softly.

"New York?" I watched her face pale. "I'm sorry, we'll have to decline"-

"No we don't, I really want to go. I have to go, this place is perfect."

"We'll wait for your father." I could tell that was the end of it and so we all sat around the table waiting for my dad to come home. As soon as he walked through the front door I jumped up and ran to him.

"Please let me go." I begged, he kicked off his shoes and raised his eyebrows towards my step-mother.

"Jenny found a wonderful school for Annabeth to attend, they'd like to show you in the kitchen." I held tightly to my dad's hand and dragged him to the kitchen. Jenny introduced Chiron and I was sent away as they talked about the boring stuff, everything that was wrong with me and how the school could help me. How I could be a danger to others if put in specific situations, but Chiron had all the right answers and I could tell that my father was impressed.

The problem they had was that Camp Half-Blood, or Máthese Academy I guess it was called in the mortal world, was a boarding school that I would theoretically live at year round. From the school year, straight through summer, I didn't have to stay over the summer but both Chiron and Jenny agreed that it would be best for me.

After hours of talking I could tell that my parents were still worried about letting me go to school across the country, and finally Chiron told them exactly why I needed to go to Camp Half-Blood. "You see it's very important that Annabeth come with us to New York."

"How so?" My dad was starting to get angry, he got really defensive when it came to what was best for me.

"Annabeth is in danger, my school is a place of protection for children like her."

"I know how to protect my children, that bastard is in jail and he is going to rot there." My father spat, my heart pounded. We don't talk about that stuff in the house, and I liked it that way.

"That's not what I mean, and you are a wonderful parent, but incidents like the fire at Carlton will follow Annabeth for her entire life. Annabeth is a demi-god." The room was quiet. "Annabeth is a daughter of Athena, correct?"

"Yes Annabeth's mother's name is Athena, but this is irrelevant."

"Athena the goddess of wisdom. Annabeth is half mortal, the fire at Carlton wasn't her fault. Her roommate reported her attacking other students, those were probably creatures of our world." The whole room just had an awkward tension to it.

"How in the world am I supposed to believe something as crazy as this?" My dad muttered.

"I am a centaur, would that prove anything?" I peaked around the corner and watched as Chiron carefully unfolded himself from his wheelchair. A full grown centaur took up almost all of our kitchen and as my parents stared open mouthed he eased himself back into the wheel chair.

"Okay, okay, but how do you know Annabeth is a daughter of Athena? My child a demi-god, wouldn't I have known?"

"That's one thing that we would like to get a few answers on. Athena herself has had a difficult time communicating with Annabeth, and I don't know of a way to prove that Annabeth is a demi-god, her mother could send a sign"-

There was a knock at the door.

"Fredrick can you get that?" My step-mother asked, I followed my father to the door and watched as he opened it.

"Athena?" He asked breathlessly, the woman from my photograph hadn't aged a day and she stood there in an intimidating manner that somehow made me proud. She walked in and gave my father a gentle hug, then turned to me.

"Annabeth you've grown so much." I nodded. "Do you still have that Yankee's cap I gave you?"

"It's just a hat, but yes I still have it." I wanted to love her, I wanted to miss her, I wanted to feel something about her, but I couldn't. There was nothing there.

"It will work when you need it." I saw a flash of sadness in her eyes, but thought nothing of it. My dad had that same sadness when I would catch him watching me.

"Oh hello." My step-mother said warily.

"Hi, I'm Athena, Annabeth's mother. You've done such a wonderful job raising her and I couldn't thank you more, but I truly believe it's time for her to go to Camp Half-Blood. She needs to know more about who she is."

"Uh- okay, it's nice to meet you too. Please come sit down." We walked back into the kitchen.

"Welcome Athena, it's a pleasure seeing you here." Chiron said with a bright smile. Jenny seemed as surprised as everyone else.

"Chiron. Jennifer I must thank you personally for all the hard work you have done for Annabeth, your mother and I are very proud." Jenny's face turned a deep shade of red.

"It's what you do for family ma'am, thank you."

"You're a demi-god too?" My father asked finally tearing his eyes away from Athena and staring at Jenny.

"Yes, my mother is Hestia."

"Isn't she a virgin?" My dad blurted out, he apologized immediately.

"Yes, children of Hestia are rare, they are born out of true love in a family and are usually found in the home of a family unable to have children of their own." Athena explained. "As I was saying, it's time for Annabeth to go to camp and learn to be a demi-god, it's a part of who she is."

"Well I don't think we really have a choice, we don't want her to be attacked by any Greek monsters and she needs to go to school. That's where she needs to be." My dad said reluctantly.

"Okay well we have a plane ticket for Annabeth leaving at the end of the week." Chiron said with a bright smile.

"I'll go under one condition." I rushed, staring at my three parents in front of me.

"You'll call me at the same time every day." My dad smiled and relaxed.

"Of course I will." He and my step-mother nodded. Athena seemed to be calculating some grand equation in her head.

"I love you dearly Annabeth." She said softly. "I'm so sorry I let you down." She stood up from the kitchen table and kissed the top of my head, I blinked quickly and she was gone.

"You swear she'll be safe at this school?" My dad asked breaking the silence that Athena had left us with.

"I swear." Chiron responded without hesitation. "You can call Annabeth every day and ask her, we have a few designated family days, but Annabeth can come home and visit."

"Okay, well what are we waiting for then? I guess we had better start packing?" He asked turning to me. I jumped up and threw my arms around him, I was going back to my friends; Thalia, Luke, Grover, other kids just like me, hundreds of cousins and a dozen siblings. Everything I could possibly need.

**Thanks for reading everyone! Please please please review!**

**-Kodi**


	14. Chapter 14

**Hey everyone thanks for all your support and patience, I have had a rough couple of weeks. I'm doing really well in school for once, but I'm doing it! I've started working with a new psychologist and so far I believe she is awesome, but it's really exhausting telling someone you don't know your deep dark secrets. So thank you for trusting me to continue to update this story. I won't give up on Annabeth she still has a lot to share with all of you.**

The gate to Camp Half-Blood loomed in front of me, my heart thumped in my chest, adrenaline pumped through my veins, I was ready for this. Chiron led me to Athena's cabin and Melanie greeted me with a large hug, "I thought you had forgotten about us." She exclaimed dragging my suitcases to the girl's wing of the cabin. "Wow you've gotten so tall!" I felt myself blushing as we unloaded my suitcase into a trunk at the foot of my bed.

"Not really." I muttered. "What have I missed while I was gone?"

"Don't worry about that, you were gone for most of the school year so you're back just in time for the fun part, summer." Melanie explained lining up all my books in a small book case next to my bed. "You'll fit in here, I promise. Just be yourself." I nodded and after packing away all my things went to a meeting with my dad, Chiron, and Mrs. Valentine. I found my dad on the porch of the Big House with his mouth open slightly staring at everything in front of him.

"This place is amazing Annabeth." He said gesturing for me to stand beside him. I looked out at the camp over the railing and smiled. "Your step-mother and I will figure it out, but we're going to come visit you every month or so, it that okay?"

"I would love that." I answered honestly. "Do you think I'll learn how to canoe?" I asked as the sun burst across the lake.

"You're going to learn a lot more than that here, they'll teach you weaponry and combat, more Greek mythology than you could ever imagine." I leaned into his side and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I'm proud of you." He said as we watched a group of older kids walk toward the rock climbing wall in the distance.

"What for? I got expelled, twice." I answered with a laugh, and surprisingly my father laughed with me.

"That is true, but I haven't met another kid as tough as you. And you're my kid." He pointed out. We watched the camp move around us, they had been out of school for a few hours and it looked like the real fun was starting. Sword fighting, satyrs teaching a few kids pan pipes, the warm sun baking the fields of strawberries in the distance.

"Mr. Chase? Chiron is ready for you. I'm Cynthia Valentine I'll be Annabeth's psychologist, it's a pleasure to meet the both of you." She shook both our hands and I could swear she winked at me.

We walked into Chiron's office and my dad seemed a little surprised that he was back in his wheelchair, though a full grown horse would take up most of the office space. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood Chase family." He said with a bright smile. My dad shook his hand and took a seat in front of Chiron's desk. I sat beside my father and Mrs. Valentine sat beside me. "Thank you for getting us all of Annabeth's records so quickly, we've been able to get her schedule ready and now we know which classes she will take."

"Great, we would like to call Annabeth every day before dinner. And when can we visit her?" The paranoia was evident on my dad's face, he was ready to just pack everything up and drive me back to California at the slightest sign of trouble.

"Before you go to dinner come here to the Big House and either I or Mr. D will help you call your parents, and Mr. Chase we have a family weekend every other month. I'll get you all those dates and we would love to see your entire family there." My dad ground his teeth, he was frustrated that Chiron could actually answer these questions.

"I've talked to the doctors that Annabeth has had over the past year and I think I've figured out why she hasn't been able to communicate with Athena the way other demi-gods have communicated with their godly parents."

"It's a medical thing? Is there something wrong with Annabeth?" My dad almost jumped out of his chair, this was getting more and more embarrassing with every passing minute. I wanted to go out and find my friends, Thalia and Luke had no idea I was coming back unless someone told them. I was going to surprise my best friends, my only true friends with the fact that I had returned to the place I truly belong.

"No, there's nothing wrong with Annabeth, but that extensive list of medications she is on may be interfering with the immortal world." Mrs. Valentine said carefully searching my father's face for a reaction.

"I don't know about that, Annabeth has been a lot better since starting the medications."

"I'm sure she has gotten a lot better, but she's a demi-god she's dyslexic because she is meant to read Greek, she has ADHD because she's a warrior. Through the activities we offer here at camp we teach our students how to overcome and manage their impulses. A majority of the students here have both ADHD and dyslexia, they understand, and this is a very safe place to try starting over without medications." My dad chewed on his bottom lip, he was just convinced by Athena to send me here, and he really didn't want to take me off my medications.

"Annabeth how does this all sound to you?" My dad asked, I jumped a little in my chair. I was suddenly included in something as important as medicine, my dad gave me a little smile and raised his eyebrows waiting for an answer.

"I don't like taking my medicine, it makes me feel funny." I muttered.

"Well there you go." My dad said simply. "We'll stop taking them." That was it, my dad was really ready to start this kind of journey.

"With these types of medications you can't just stop taking them, so we'll slowly make the doses smaller until there's nothing left. It can take anywhere from four to six months." She explained.

"That's okay, I just don't want to take them forever." My dad didn't seem upset by this decision and that seriously surprised me. "How often do I have to talk to you?"

"Once a week, on Fridays I'll pull you out of recess after lunch. Just for an hour, but I live here at Camp so if you ever need me for any reason just tell a senior camper, a teacher, anyone and I'll come find you."

"Well that's pretty cool huh?" My dad said softly, I could tell he was worried, he knew he was going to be asked to leave soon.

"This place is the best, I already have friends and I have brothers and sister. Other people like me that enjoy reading and geometry." My dad's shoulders slumped a little and I knew I had won, no more medicine and I was officially a camper at Camp Half-Blood. I was sent away so the grown-ups could talk about all the serious stuff, I found myself wandering around the Big House.

There wasn't much to it, a whole wing was reserved for an infirmary of sorts. There was a game room that didn't have much more than a ping-pong table, a few offices, and then an upstairs. Something about the upstairs brought dread to the pit of my stomach, but there was also a magnet somewhere deep inside me pulling me closer and closer.

I could feel eyes watching me, something was dragging me closer to the stairs, I needed to go up them, there was something up there just for me. Something was waiting for me in the attic, something important. I placed my hand on the banister, the smooth wood was warm beneath my hand. It felt right, I deserved to know what was up there. I gripped the rail hard and placed one foot on the first step, the carpet was surprisingly clean and new looking, the attic wasn't a place that was visited frequently.

Maybe I wasn't allowed up there. I released my hand from the banister, I didn't want to get in trouble. I didn't want to get expelled before my dad even left the school, but how much trouble could I truly get in if I didn't know what was and wasn't allowed in the first place.

Whatever was up there was important, I could feel it. I slid my hand along the grain of the banister, I replaced my foot on the first step and let my body carry me to the second. I could feel a powerful presence at the top of the stairs, an aura similar to my mother's. Why would I feel such a presence from an attic?

As I traveled up the stairs my heart beat faster, whatever was at the top of the stairs would change my life forever. A change would be good. The air became thicker and the weight of what was behind the dark wooden door settled heavily on my shoulders, but it was important, I could tell that much. I gripped the door knob with a shaking hand, surprised how cold it was, something, someone, was behind this door, I could feel it.

The knob turned beneath my hand and the door opened on well oiled hinges, the air pressure around me changed. I took a deep breath preparing to open the door further.

"Annabeth, come show me your room before I leave." My father called from down stairs. I shut the door quickly and sprinted down the stairs, the further I got from the room the less I cared about what was behind that door.

We walked around the camp beside Chiron in his centaur form, he showed us everything from the stables to the pavilion where all the meals were eaten. Our tour ended at the Athena cabin, which was currently empty. The front room was full of desks and archeological models of historical buildings, from there it branched off into a girls and boys wing with private senior counselor rooms in the front of each.

"Well this place is officially amazing and I'm jealous I couldn't go here as a kid." My dad said sitting on my new bed.

"It is pretty awesome." I agreed.

"I want to make sure you know that if anything happens, even if you just get really homesick or just decide you hate this place, you can call me or your step-mom and we will come pick you up in a heartbeat. No questions, we'll just come get you." I nodded. "I love you so much."

"I love you too." I answered quickly.

"You'll call me before dinner right?"

"Of course." I hugged him tightly and, after I had embarrassingly shed a few tears, walked him to the front of camp. The rental car sat there waiting for him, and I held tight to his hand for the first time in over a year. "I love you daddy." I said quickly as he reached down to give me another hug.

"I love you more Annie. You don't have to do this unless you want to, no one will be upset if you change your mind." I nodded.

"I'm just going to miss you." I responded honestly.

"We'll miss you too, but we will visit you all the time and we'll never ever stop loving you." He hugged me as tight as he had when the police gave me back to him. "I'm going to leave now, but if you need anything you know how to call everyone right? It doesn't matter what time, I want to hear from you okay?"

"I promise." I sniffled back tears and forced a smile at him. He gave me a forced smile back, before squeezing my hands and getting into the rental car. He pulled away from camp and I was left there, alone. My chest began to hurt and I wanted nothing more than for him to come back and just stay for dinner.

"Hey Annabeth." Melanie called behind me. I dried my eyes quickly and pulled myself together. "It's okay to be sad, everyone is sad after they get dropped off." She said simply. I shrugged, I didn't want to be known as the crybaby at camp. At Carlton everyone knew who cried at night for their parents, I was going to live here until I went to college I didn't want to be known as the crybaby. "Are you ready to meet your brothers and sisters?"

"I guess so." I answered trying to stay calm. "How many do we have?"

"In the whole world? I have no idea, think of a famous person, they're probably a demi-god. We have a really big, crazy family, but it's wonderful." We started walking back towards the half circle of cabins. "Here at camp there are six other girls and seven boys, we aren't the biggest cabin, but we are the smartest." I couldn't help but smile.

"What about Luke and Thalia, are they still here? Do they know I'm back?" I rushed.

"Yeah they're still here, Luke is amazing with a sword and Thalia is craving for a quest but Mr. D is hesitant to give her one. I don't think anyone told them you were coming back today though." We walked into our cabin and it seemed as though everyone was standing in the main room.

"Welcome to camp!" They all called out to me, all of these people were my family, my friends. They went around introducing themselves and showed me projects that they were working on.

"This is your desk." Melanie said, it had cards written to me from each of my brothers and sisters. I was smiling from ear to ear, it was better than Christmas, better than any birthday I had ever had. "After you get used to camp you can start your own project, or you can join someone else's. You're going to love it here, don't worry about anything."

I knew she was right, this place was my home, when I had been lost and scared and hurt I had ended up here and now that I was healed and strong and independent I had found my way back. I was home.

**I know it wasn't as eventful as previous chapters, but life has ups and downs. Please review! **

**-Kodi**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hey everybody! Thank you for reading this story, and thanks for all the awesome and supportive reviews! Sorry it took a little while to post, but I need to make sure I get this right so that older Annabeth is the Annabeth we all know (and Percy loves). For all you aching for some Percy, sorry but you're going to have to wait for a few more chapters (not many but a few) **

**And I'm going to try and update more often, but I know for sure I'll be able to update more next month because the semester will be over! And rugby season will also be over **

**I know what you're all thinking, American's are terrible at rugby (and compared to everyone else we aren't very good that's for sure) Not to mention I'm a girl! I shouldn't be playing, but I do and I love it! I play 8 man and prop sometimes, and surprisingly I don't look like a huge beefy man-woman, I'm just stronger than I look!**

I woke up to the sound of people moving around, Melanie walked around the room waking up a few of the younger kids and I jumped up to get ready for my first day of school. I brushed my hair and my teeth, got dressed, and went out to my desk to gather everything I would need for my first class. Once my backpack was securely on my back I walked over to a large book case in the back of the room, some were in Greek and others were in Roman, but my eyes fell on a book on architecture. I had always enjoyed art, and had a knack for finding art in things people couldn't, but the buildings in this book were beautiful.

"Do you like architecture?" A boy about my age asked. I shrugged and avoided eye contact with him, I hadn't spent time with boys my own age in months. I had been in all-girls classes and an all-girls school, but this kid was supposed to be my brother.

"I've never really studied it before." I answered honestly.

"You're going to love it, I'm Malcolm, it's Annabeth right?" I nodded and he flipped the book to architecture in Greece. "One day I'll see every single one of these buildings." Malcolm said with a little gleam in his eye. "Any way are you excited for your first day of class?"

"Yeah, I'm actually kind of nervous though." I grumbled.

"Don't worry, you can sit next to me in class. We'll be in all the same classes together, it's just like regular school, it's the after school activities that are really fun." Malcolm continued. "I'll make sure you stay with me, everyone finds a buddy and you can be mine." Malcolm had a huge smile on his face, but this was strange, I had never ever made friends this fast. The smile began to slip off of Malcolm's face, "Only if you want to though."

"No that's not it, I want to be friends with you, I swear, I just don't have a lot of friends." I mumbled, this was embarrassing.

"I didn't have a lot of friends before I came to camp either." Malcolm said carefully. "But it's different here, everyone has ADHD and other problems, no one will make fun of you here. We're all the same." A smile broke out on his face. "And the best part is, no monsters can get us while we're in camp."

"What time do we have to get to class?" I wanted to avoid talking about the things that made me feel bad, not on my first day of school.

"Well first we have breakfast." Malcolm seemed relieved at the change of subject as well. All my siblings started filling up the common room, they were discussing their projects and going over homework that was due.

We stepped outside of the cabin as a large group, and joined in the hoard of students walking towards the pavilion. "Hey Annabeth!" A voice shouted behind me, I turned to see Thalia jogging towards me with a single notebook in her hand.

"Hi!" I was smiling, for some reason I was smiling from ear to ear. "This is Malcolm." I said gesturing to my brother. "He's going to be my buddy today for school."

"Yeah I know Malcolm, you're pretty good with a javelin." Thalia tossed towards him, his face lit up as though he had just been given an "A+" on a paper. "Annabeth is my best friend, promise you'll make sure she gets treated well in class."

"Of-of course." Malcolm stuttered, I couldn't understand why he was acting this way, but it wasn't really important.

"Where's your backpack?" Thalia just waved her notebook in front of me. "You need more than that." I laughed.

"Nah, I'll be okay with just this. I just need to learn enough to find my brother." I could have sworn she said that her brother was dead, but I didn't want to bring that up here, not in front of everyone. We followed the wave of people as they entered the pavilion, and I sat with my brothers and sisters as usual and filled my plate with bacon and eggs.

"How did you get to know Thalia already?" Malcolm asked through a mouthful of pancakes.

"We know each other from before." I said simply. "Why?"

"She's amazing, the coolest person here, and the only child of the big three." Malcolm had a gleam in his eye. I glanced over at Thalia, she was sitting alone studying the pages in her spiral notebook as if the largest test in the world was looming closer with every passing minute.

"The big three? Like Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades? Why is she the only one?" Malcolm struggled to swallow his food without choking.

"No one really knows why there haven't been any children from the big three, but according to Chiron it had something to do with the Civil War. They teach us in American History that to end the war the big three made a pact of sorts to avoid a war like that again, no more kids, no more war. It obviously didn't work, but no one around here really believes that version anyway." I tried to avoid watching Thalia, but I couldn't help it. The more I watched her the more I noticed that around here she wasn't a camper like everyone else, they expected her to be more than that. She was supposed to be a leader, a prodigy, and a mentor. Everyone here looked up to her, including the senior campers, and if Thalia didn't look so tough and cold they probably would have eaten her alive.

"So what's going to happen to the pact?" I asked, turning back to my cold eggs.

"That's why no one believes it, nothing has happened. Thalia is fourteen and nothing has happened at all." Malcolm finished up his breakfast and waited patiently for me. "It's really cool that you're friends with her though. She only hangs out with this guy Luke from Hermes."

"Yeah Luke and I are friends too I guess." I swung my backpack over my shoulder and walked beside Malcolm up to the school building. The place the truth had really come out, it seemed as though my confession about Riley had happened another life time ago, but the more I thought about it the more I remembered sitting in that wooden chair across from Mrs. Valentine. I remembered the words falling out of my mouth, and just before I could remember what they all meant I shut it off.

"You have to go in the office first, I'll wait right here for you though." Malcolm said stopping in front of a large glass door. I stepped inside and was handed my schedule of classes, then sent to the nurse's office to take a large cup full of medicine.

"It's going to take almost a year to get you off all these medications. If you feel light headed or if your heart starts to race at all you have to tell a teacher or a senior camper okay?" I nodded and took each of them before washing it down with a mouthful of water.

"Can I go to class now?"

"You Athenian kids are all about the academics, skip a class once and a while, it makes you live longer." I couldn't tell if she was joking, so I smiled and walked back to the hallway where Malcolm was waiting.

"Are you still taking medicine for your ADHD?"

"How do you know that?"

"We all used to take medicine for it, it's terrible, makes you super slow on the battle field. But don't worry you'll be off it in no time, and you'll feel so much better." I followed him to our first class and reading suddenly became a breeze when I noticed that beside every single sentence in English there was a mirrored sentence in Greek. Somehow I knew what it said, I found myself reading all the Greek and ignoring the English.

I had class with kids my own age and they weren't ahead of me in any way. I picked up Greek faster than I could have ever imagined, I could find faults in battle strategies as fast as anyone I just needed to learn the vocabulary, and after that I just needed to perfect my battle skills. All of our classes ended before lunch and I surprised myself with how many friends I suddenly had in between school starting and school ending. All my brothers and sisters had warmed up to me and now conversation flowed, they all wanted me to go with them so they could teach me how to use a sword, or a javelin, even learn some basic magic, but just as lunch ended Thalia snatched me away from my siblings and led me to the weapons shed.

"I have a present for you." She said with a huge smile.

"Your little brother, is his dad Zeus too?" I don't know why I was suddenly so forward with these questions, but then again Thalia was the only one that had been honest about absolutely everything with me.

"Yeah." She said shortly.

"So what everyone says about the "big three" is it true?" She looked me up and down, sizing me up, judging me.

"My brother, Jason, and I are the only kids of the big three that I know of. Are you going to treat me like The Chose One now too?"

"No, of course not. You're my best friend." I said simply. Her face softened and she hugged me tightly. "So do you have a present for me or not?"

"Man suburban life has gotten to you." Thalia laughed. "When Stephanie took you home she stole my dagger back from you, apparently sending you home with a weapon would make your parents "upset" or something like that." That day was a blur, I didn't even remember getting on the airplane to get home. Thalia reached into the waist band of her jeans and pulled out the dagger she had given me when she rescued me.

"You still want me to have it?"

"Of course, it has always been yours." She pressed it into my hands and I turned it over carefully, it was smaller than I remembered, but it actually seemed real. I wasn't going to wake up in my parent's home dreading another day of home school, I was actually at Camp Half-Blood and I was actually going to become the best demi-god the camp had ever seen. "Did you have a good time while you were at home?"

"It was okay." I said simply. Thalia pulled out her own set of hunting knives and we started walking towards a target range of sorts. "I didn't really have any friends, and I got attacked by monster cheerleaders." Thalia and I started laughing, out of everything we had been through together the months I had spent trying to be normal were nothing.

"Did they have flaming pom-poms or something?" Thalia snorted.

"They didn't need them, I almost got arrested for burning down the gym."

"I've been arrested it's not that bad." Thalia murmured, I could feel the hairs on my arms stand up, almost as if Thalia was radiating static electricity. I didn't dare mention the tingling on my skin or the fact that Thalia had been arrested. "Alright you ready to learn something useful?"

"I know useful things." I insisted, a smile cracked across Thalia's face and the static electricity disappeared.

"A book won't help you against fire breathing cheerleaders." She stripped off her leather jacket and we stood in the middle of a field staring at each other. I bounced on the balls of my feet anxiously and watched a sword fighting lesson in the distance, it looked intense, dangerous, and difficult. The worst part was it looked difficult, I was about to embarrass myself in front of my best friend. "Don't worry about them, we're going to cover some basics."

After thirty minutes of technique and nicking a few of my fingers I was starting to feel a little confident in my ability to pick up a few combat skills while I was here at camp. "When can I practice throwing?" I asked as we took a quick swig of water.

"Throwing is for when you're desperate and just need to get a few seconds to run away, come back to the weapons shed with me and get a dull knife from the left wall." I picked up the dull knife and noticed that it was heavier and more awkward than my knife. "Now don't think of any of the things I just taught you." Thalia said as we walked back to the field.

"Then why did we just spend all that time doing all that?" I grumbled trying to keep hastily stuck Band-Aids on my fingers.

"What we just went over are basic skills you should practice every day, as often as you can. If you master all those basics then you'll be able to use them without thinking in the middle of a fight." Thalia took a fighting stance and my breath got stuck in my throat.

"I don't want to hurt you. I can't do this." I grumbled.

"No, no Annabeth that's not what any of this is about. This is about being able to fight monsters, and that's why we're using dull knives, you won't hurt me and I won't hurt you." I knew she was right. "It's your first time sparring it's going to go really slow, don't worry." I nodded and followed Thalia's example of a fighting stance.

Within three seconds my knife fell to the ground and Thalia was ready to make a deadly strike. "I'm terrible." I huffed.

"No you aren't, this is your first try. Let's go again." Thalia handed me my knife and we tried again. This time it took Thalia almost thirty seconds to disarm me, she handed me my knife again and we continued fighting. After fifteen minutes of restarts we were breathing heavy and drenched in sweat, I hadn't won a single time, but Thalia also hadn't been able knock my knife out of my hand in five whole minutes. The matches kept growing in intensity and as soon as the knife felt comfortable in my hands I began to see patterns in Thalia's fighting style. I could see she favored her right side, but her left had a few surprises of its own. Thalia was fast and wasn't afraid to strike at all levels and every single time I thought I had her figured out she pulled out a new trick.

"You're holding back." I panted, pushing her knife away from my throat.

"Not really, only a little." She helped me get to my feet. "You need to be able to learn."

"I have to be ready for everything, don't hold back." I insisted.

"I'm still going to hold back, you don't want to get struck by lightning." Thalia held out her hand and sparks flew out of her fingertips.

"That's awesome." I heard myself whisper, Thalia shrugged and we resumed our battle. My body ached, but I felt strong and confident in my movements. Sweat soaked my shirt and my hair stuck to the back of my neck. There was a small crowd of people gathered as Thalia and I continued to fight, we fought until a single sparring match exhausted us. Every time I saw a point of attack on Thalia I took it, and she always countered it, but I was a fast learner. I countered all her attacks until my arms felt like rubber, I tried to strike on Thalia's weak side, but she knocked my knife out of my tired hands. I quickly grabbed Thalia's attacking arm and dragged her to the ground knocking her own knife free.

"Nice move kid." She panted. There was a small wave of applause and I saw that Malcolm stood among a group of my siblings and they were all cheering for me. "Same time tomorrow?" She asked as we picked up our weapons and followed all the rest of the kids to lock up before dinner.

"Nope, tomorrow I'm going to teach Annabeth how to use a real weapon." Luke said stepping in between the two of us.

"Oh come on Luke, you haven't beat me yet." Thalia laughed.

"The one time I almost beat you you "accidentally" electrocuted me!" Luke shouted, a snicker went through all the kids surrounding us. "No extra abilities, everyone knows that."

"I said I was sorry." Thalia shrugged, it was obvious she didn't mean it.

We stood in line with the rest of the campers waiting to put away all the weapons in the shed. Even though we were all trained in combat it was impractical to give hundreds of children access to weapons unsupervised and so every weapon stayed locked in this shed for most of the day, but there was always talk around camp that someone had figured out how to sneak a weapon out without anyone noticing. Though it was never proved.

"What if a monster attacks camp?" I asked as I handed my weapon over to the hand to hand combat teacher.

"There are racks of weapons throughout camp, but the weapons are enchanted to the racks until an emergency happens." Thalia explained. "We get a little bit of time to clean up before dinner, wanna see the Zeus cabin?"

"Of course." I exclaimed and followed her to the white and gold cabin at the edge of the semi-circle. I followed her inside and saw that it was just as stark and clean on the inside as it was on the out. In the middle there was a large statue of Zeus himself and a single bed in the corner of the room. I glanced up saw beautiful, but angry storm clouds rolling across the ceiling, and every few minutes lightning would flash through them. "It's beautiful." I muttered.

"Yeah, it's the only good thing about this place." Thalia laughed. She tossed me a clean camp T-shirt and we washed our hands in her bathroom. "This cabin wasn't meant to actually house any campers, it's more of a shrine to Zeus, but then I came along and so they gave me a bed and all the usual stuff."

"It is kind of weird to have your dad stare at you all the time." I whispered glancing at the Zeus statue.

"Yeah I talked to Chiron about that, we're trying to figure something out." We started laughing together and collapsed onto her bed. "Did you have a good first day?"

"It was wonderful." I replied honestly. "Promise me this is all real."

"It's all real, I swear." I sighed and watched the storm churn overhead, I could even smell rain that would never fall. "Hey Annabeth, can I ask you something?" Thalia asked nervously.

"Yeah, I owe you one, you found me." I said, my chest tightened, that was the closest I had ever come to acknowledging that time in my life.

"No you don't owe me anything for that, but I'm asking you a favor because I trust you." I looked over at her out of the corner of my eye, she was transfixed on the same storm as me.

"Yes, I'll do it." I responded without hesitation.

"You don't even know what I was going to ask."

"I don't need to know." Thalia suddenly started crying, I hugged her tightly without thinking and tried to figure out what I was supposed to do.

"I'm going to leave camp." Thalia choked out finally pulling herself together.

"Why? What happened?" Was this place actually dangerous too?

"I have to go find my brother, Jason. I asked for a quest but no one wants to give me one, so I'm going to run away and find him. Luke said he'd come with me, but I want you to come too." Was she really asking me to run away from the one place that accepted every single part of me?

"Yes I'll go with you." I heard myself answer. "I don't know anything yet, I couldn't help you guys, I'd just be a burden."

"We won't leave till this summer when there's twice as many campers, by then you'll be amazing, even by Athena standards." I felt myself swell, no one had trusted me this much in almost two years. "Now let's go eat some dinner." We once again fell into the crowd of campers walking towards the pavilion.

"I'm supposed to go to the Big House and take my meds." I whispered as the path to the house approached. Thalia shrugged and followed me up the path, my meds were waiting for me in syringes beside the adult in charge of the infirmary. I took them as fast as I could and washed them down with a mouthful of water. "You can go to dinner, I don't want to keep you waiting, and I have to call my dad." Thalia just shrugged again and sat down in the chair on the other side of the public phone. I rushed through everything that had happened at camp in ten minutes and I could hear the joy in my dad's voice that I had actually had a great day. I said hello to my step-mom and the twins before hanging up and walking out of the Big House with Thalia, Luke was waiting on the porch and we walked together with the other late people to dinner.

I gave my offering to Hestia, Jenny's mother, for helping me find my true home. I also hadn't really been able to forgive my mother for ignoring me when I needed her most. I convinced Melanie to allow Thalia to sit with us and by the end of dinner Thalia had made about five friends in the Athena cabin. I couldn't convince Melanie to allow me to spend the night with Thalia, but for the first time in a very long time I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

**Thanks for reading everyone! Please review, they make me smile. Rugby is the best therapy ever invented!**

** -Kodi**


	16. Chapter 16

My life at Camp Half-Blood was amazing. There was no other way to describe it, within a week of being at camp I had caught up to my peers academically. Within a month I had completed my first architectural project and after six months the only people that could still beat me in combat were Luke and Thalia.

I was no longer taking half the medications I had started with and I was loving it. My parents were probably even happier than I was, just because I was finally resembling the old Annabeth. I kept my promise and called them every day and they made sure that they visited or I went home at least once a month. It was strange to see the twins grow up so quickly between each visit, but I knew that staying at camp was the best thing I could do for my family right now.

I'm nine and a half years old and fluent in Greek, I can fight with a long sword and javelin, but I am best with my dagger, and I already knew my dreams in life. I was going to build a monument as spectacular as the ones in my textbooks, my name was going to live among those and maybe then Athena would love me.

No, Athena didn't not love me, but I obviously had to prove myself. She was waiting for me to behave like a true child of hers. Then she would claim me, and then she would protect me. I craved a dream from her, from any Greek god, I heard all my siblings and cousins talk about their dreams, most of them were insignificant, some of them were terrifying and others were captivating. All of them made me jealous. I sat in front of Mrs. Valentine once every other week and I would tell her all about the highlights of my weeks, we would always come back to the abandonment I felt from Athena, but I wouldn't dare voice the abandonment I felt from the gods as a whole.

"You know we think the reason your communication with Athena is so scarce is because of the medications you're on. You took medicine regularly when you were with Riley too right?" I was taken aback by this question. I felt my body fill up with panic and emotions and right before they reached an unbearable point I shut them down entirely. Mrs. Valentine just watched me carefully, but I concentrated on a spot on the wall beside her. "Are you okay?" I nodded. "Did you take medicine that year?"

"Yeah." I heard myself answer.

"Do you know what type of medicine it was?"

"No, it made me really tired." I responded. There were no emotions, nothing at all, but I could answer her questions. "I don't want to talk about that." I grumbled finally making eye contact with her again.

"Okay. I just want to make sure you know that when you're ready to talk we can." I nodded and we eased back into effortless conversation, and I pushed the discomfort deep down but it kept nagging in the back of my mind how terribly just mentioning Riley had made me feel.

"What's wrong?" Thalia asked me at dinner, how did I get to dinner? I felt my face turn a little red, I had been floating through the day, off in my mind and I didn't even know it.

"Nothing, nothing, don't worry about it." I grumbled shoveling food in my mouth. Were those mashed potatoes? Thalia gave me a look that showed this conversation was far from over, and that made my heart beat uncomfortably fast. Thalia tried to hold normal conversation with me, but I was obviously preoccupied and she gave up quickly, turning to Malcolm and discussing this week's upcoming capture the flag game.

Before I knew what was happening dinner was over and everyone was heading down to the bonfire. I followed the crowd, lost in thought and almost screamed when someone grabbed my forearm and pulled me away. "Calm down, it's just me. Sorry I scared you." Thalia said with a small smile.

"But the bonfire? We have to go." I muttered following behind her, but she held my hand so tightly I couldn't get away if I tried. Thalia dragged me into her cabin and closed the door behind us. "I don't want to get in trouble Thalia." I grumbled.

"You're doing that thing again." She said with a really serious tone.

"I don't know what you mean." Lie, I know exactly what she means.

"Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"I don't want to talk about it." I snapped. Thalia looked really hurt, and it was quiet for almost an entire minute before I burst into tears and sobbed into Thalia's chest. She held onto me until I stopped crying and then we sat beside each other with our backs against the door staring at the storm stirring on the ceiling. I waited for Thalia to say something, to start the conversation, but she wouldn't. "Do you ever think about when your mom would hurt you?"

"Yes." She said simply. I wanted more, I wanted her to tell me how I was supposed to feel.

"I don't. I don't think about it ever, I don't remember it. I don't want to." I strung together.

"What happened today?" Thalia asked carefully.

"I had to talk to Mrs. Valentine." It was quiet again. "She talked about Riley, and I felt horrible." I took a deep breath. "Promise me, we'll never ever talk about it. You'll never tell anyone what happened that day, you'll never tell anyone what you know." I demanded.

"I would never tell anyone Annabeth." She said slightly hurt, as though I was somehow questioning our friendship.

"I don't want to talk about it ever again, tell Luke too." I jumped to my feet and stared at her. "Promise me." I shouted, Thalia jumped and tears actually fell from her eyes. "Please, please, promise me." I continued at a hoarse whisper.

"I swear Annie. We'll never talk about it again, Luke won't either." I nodded, dried my face furiously, and started wringing my hands. "It's okay, it'll be okay." She continued. "Annabeth, you're worrying me." I felt anxiety building in my chest, and before I could do anything about it it escalated into panic. I started hyperventilating, I couldn't breathe, I ground my teeth together. I needed to make this end, how could I make this end? I let out a frustrated scream and pulled my hand back to punch a wall, but someone grabbed my elbow and pulled me into a tight bear hug.

"Why?" I heard myself say. I struggled against Thalia's tight grip, but she continued to hold onto me.

"Breathe Annabeth, you have to breathe." I choked on air and it just frustrated me more. I was going to die, I could feel it deep down inside, I was going to choke to death. "Just try and relax, it'll be over soon. Focus on breathing." Thalia held onto me as I suffered through a panic attack. "It'll be okay." She said over and over, and eventually I began to believe her. After what could have been hours I was finally able to unclench my fists, and a minute after that I took a healthy breath of air. "How do you feel?"

"Tired." I answered honestly.

"When you feel alright I'll walk you to your cabin." Her hug loosened and she pushed my now disheveled hair off my forehead. "I'll keep your promise forever."

"Thank you." I watched as tears continued to fall down her face, and a pang of guilt hit me in the stomach. "I'm sorry." Thalia let out a small laugh and dried her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Don't you ever worry about me, I'm here to take care of you." It felt so strange to have someone care so much about me. "Come on, you should get some sleep." She held my hand tightly and we walked to the Athena cabin together. "If you need anything come to my room and get me. We'll deal with breaking the rules later." I threw my arms around her waist and held her as tight as I could.

"I love you Thalia, you're my best friend." I confessed.

"I love you too." She squeezed me back before releasing me. "Now get some sleep, I promise you'll feel better tomorrow." I nodded and carefully opened the door to my cabin so I wouldn't wake anyone.

"Hey Annabeth, you just made curfew, hurry and get ready for bed." Melanie said with the warm smile she always wore. I tiptoed past my sleeping sisters and changed in the bathroom before brushing my teeth and allowing Melanie to comb my hair into a braid.

I snuggled into my covers and fell asleep in seconds. I thought I felt tired, when in reality I was exhausted. On Saturdays we're allowed to sleep in until ten and if I didn't have to get up I could have slept until Sunday. "Annabeth get up, there are cabin inspections today, we need you to help tidy up." I jumped up and ignored the snickers of my siblings, this was the only time that they had ever seen me this vulnerable. I showered and got dressed quickly before stripping my bed sheets and dumping them with everyone else's for washing along with my dirty laundry. I put on my orange camp shirt with the suggested jean shorts, Saturdays were the day that families might come for tours so we got more brownie points if we were dressed in camp clothes on Saturdays and Athenians are all about their brownie points. I organized my trunk and then moved to my desk in the common room where Malcolm was trying to organize all the blue prints on our potential project.

"So when are we going to pitch this whole idea?" Malcolm asked holding up the thick file that went along with the role of blue prints. "Or this one? Or this one?" His voice adopted a mocking tone.

"They're not ready." I insisted, snatching them from his grasp.

"I've been here longer than you"-

"By four months." I mocked.

"And I'm older than you"-

"By two weeks." I laughed.

"The point is I am the most experienced, and no one in the history of Camp Half-Blood has ideas half as good as yours." I shrugged. "So you should pitch all your ideas."

"They aren't ready yet." I responded simply and Malcolm let out a dramatic sigh, but continued to help me clean up all of our projects.

"Can we at least get someone to help? What about an intern aren't they supposed to do all the dirty work without getting paid?"

"None of us get paid." I pointed out.

"Whatever, can't we just get someone else to help us?"

"No, come on Malcom. I already explained all this to you. You should be honored, you are my favorite sibling and I chose you to help me with these things." The flattery had worked again. For how shitty my night had been my day was going wonderfully, we had the cleanest cabin if you did the math, but no one actually did and so Aphrodite's cabin won, again.

I had slept most of the day away and so now all I had time for was helping arrange strategies for tonight's capture the flag. We were destined to win we had Ares, Zeus, and Hephaestus on our side. The rest of the camp was arguing that this week was "fixed" but it's really not our fault if Hermes cabin has nearly three times as many members compared to any other cabin.

I helped most of the younger kids set up armor and repair any damaged weapons before we sat down in a briefing so we were all ready for the battle tonight. My job was to make sure Thalia did her job, not that Thalia would do anything but her job, but Thalia liked to save everyone and every Athenian knew not everyone can be saved.

We won, in record time I might add, and as we ate victory dinner at the pavilion Thalia sat beside me flicking olives at Luke at the other table. "You did really well." She said actually taking a bite of something off her plate before scribbling in the notebook that seemed to have a never ending supply of fresh paper.

"Thanks." I did do pretty well, I disarmed three older campers and Thalia had a real talent for working together. She flicked another bit of food at Luke and he shoved his brother. Thalia and I couldn't help but laugh, which got us caught and he chucked a piece of cubed cheese our way missing and hitting a nymph who promptly "spilt" gravy on his shirt. We laughed until dinner ended and we made our way to the bon fire with Luke swearing under his breath.

"It's bad enough that you guys cheated on the battle field but seriously you had to ruin my last good camp shirt?" He was still wiping at the gravy stain furiously.

"We didn't cheat, we were born to win." I insisted.

"Exactly, all the "born to win" cabins on one team is cheating." His face was blotchy and red and eventually he just hung his head down as kids made fun of his inability to eat gravy.

"No that's strategy at its finest." Luke continued to grumble all the way to the bonfire where the teams for next week's capture the flag. Some stupid camp announcements about how Aphrodite won the clean cabin award and whatever new classes they were going to offer this summer. This summer, my first real summer at camp, I was so excited to meet the summer campers.

Thalia, Luke, and I walked back to the horseshoe of cabins together, walking slowly so we were the last ones. "It's kind of crazy that this is our home now." Luke said softly kicking sand as we took the long way to the cabins.

"I like it." I insisted before he could say anything bad about it.

"I know you do." Was his only reply.

"We're going to do it this summer." Thalia said quietly.

"I'm ready now." Luke said adding a depth to his voice.

"Ready for what?" I actually felt like the youngest, I knew I was years younger than the two of them, but it never felt that way, until now. I felt left out.

"We're going to leave this summer and go find my brother, Jason. You're coming to help right? It'll be just like a quest you always have three on a quest and there will be three of us. You guys are the best fighters I know and I need the best." Luke agreed and talked about all the ideas he had of where Jason could be, they started a whole conversation exchanging theories and strategies, and for the first time I had nothing.

"I-I can't go." I sputtered, conversation stopped instantly.

"Why not?" Luke demanded. "It's the least you could do for Thalia." My face burnt red and shame filled me, a shame that made my stomach churn.

"Luke over the line." Thalia snapped breathlessly. "What's on your mind Annie?" I shook my head.

"I'll come, it's fine." I grumbled. Thalia bent down to my eye level and squeezed my hand. "Bad things happen when I run away." I answered simply.

"This isn't running away, we're coming back, and Luke and I are going to protect you." Thalia said with a bright smile. "No one's going to make you do this, but I want you there, you're my best friend and it wouldn't be the same without you." I nodded.

"I'll come." Thalia looked content, but Luke seemed disappointed in my hesitation.

Luke and Thalia walked me to my cabin and by the way it was awkwardly quiet I knew that they were going to talk once I was gone. I once again felt like the baby, the person they felt some obligation to protect, because I was weak. I walked into my cabin, counted to sixty, and slipped back out again, just in time to see Thalia and Luke walk behind the Hermes cabin.

I jogged around the far corner so they wouldn't see me, but just so I was close enough to hear. "You can't say shit like that to Annabeth, who the fuck do you think you are?" Thalia demanded in a harsh whisper.

"But it's true, we owe you our lives. What would have happened to her if you didn't have that dream and save her? I was going to get mauled by telekhine if you didn't find me when you did, we owe you everything." Luke reasoned.

"What happened to her and what happened to you are different. Get over yourself." Thalia snarled. "Don't you dare talk to her about it ever again." Luke started to defend himself. "Ever again, swear."

"I swear." Luke resigned.

"Annabeth had a break down yesterday over that kind of shit exactly, the last thing she needs is you waving it over her like some kind of threat."

"She had a break down?"

"She made me promise that we would never ever mention what we saw that day, that we wouldn't tell anyone what happened. I promised, you have to too."

"I promise, okay? I'm sorry, I really am." I jogged back to my cabin, Thalia had my back, Thalia would protect me forever, Thalia would never hurt me. These were all things I knew without a shadow of a doubt, and these were all things I knew would never change.

**You might want some Kleenex for the next chapter! Please review, and thanks for reading!**

**-Kodi**


	17. Chapter 17

**Sorry that this took what probably actually felt like forever but I really hope the length of this chapter makes up for the wait. THANK YOU so much for hanging in there and reading this far.**

The hardest part was taking that first step out of Camp Half-Blood. I stood there, my heart beating in my ears, and I held the handle of my dagger tightly in my hand. "I don't know if I can do this." I huffed to Luke and Thalia as they stood on the other side of the camp border.

"We're just going on a quest, nothing more, nothing less. We're the top three campers right now, they would send us anyways." Luke said trying to hide his lack of patience.

"We'll protect you just as we promised. You can do this Annie, I know you can." Thalia said in a way that proved she would stand here and wait all day until I was ready. I counted to ten, then twenty, by the time I got to one hundred I was ready. With one glance back at camp I crossed the protective border back into the mortal world. "Don't worry Annabeth, we picked the perfect time to leave without getting noticed." She was right, of course.

Thalia had been planning this quest since she first stepped foot into Camp Half-Blood, and with all the summer campers pouring in, both new and old, now was the optimal time to sneak through the curtain of mist undetected. We walked through the woods for over an hour in silence all of us harboring the fear of getting caught and being stuck at camp after being considered flight risks.

"So." Luke trailed off as we walked just inside the tree line so we could follow the highway without being seen. "Uh." He tried again.

"Where are we going?" I asked Thalia and Luke stared at her waiting for an answer.

"The Wolf House." Thalia said simply.

"Okay, where is that?" Luke asked, finding his voice.

"In a park." Thalia answered. Luke stared her down some more. "In California."

"How in the world are we getting to California?" I was actually starting to feel excited about this trip.

"I've planned everything out, don't worry." Thalia assured us. She stepped out of the tree line and looked both ways down the road before tossing a drachma into the street. A ghost cab came to a screeching halt before the drachma even reached the ground. "Get in." Thalia said with a smile.

"We can afford a cab all the way to California?" Luke asked jumping in the cab with me.

"Yeah I saved up for all the way there, but I didn't have enough time for the way back. We'll figure it out okay?" Luke seemed to accept this answer and we began a nauseating journey to California. "What would have taken us over a week of unreliable driving will only take us twelve hours in the Gray Sisters' Taxi." None of us wanted to complain, but twelve hours later we all would have rather walked for weeks than spend that much time in the taxi. "Sorry." Thalia grumbled as we all doubled over on the grass of a park.

"You didn't know." Luke tried to reason. I didn't say anything, I had struggled for hours with my motion sickness, but it was going to win. I jumped up and sprinted over to the nearest trashcan releasing my lunch. I rinsed my mouth out with my water bottle and we all tried to pretend that I didn't throw up.

"Well the Wolf House is around here somewhere, but it's the middle of the night, we should find somewhere to sleep and recover." Thalia suggested. We jogged into the surrounding woods and set up the tent, we each ate a half square of ambrosia hoping it would help with the motion sickness and went to bed.

"Big, big day!" Thalia shouted a few hours later, Luke groaned and pulled his pillow over his head. "I will take down this tent with you inside." Thalia threatened, I dragged my body out of bed and got dressed making sure my dagger was tucked safely in my belt. Luke got ready too before helping Thalia tear down the tent as I did inventory on the food we had. "Are you guys ready?" Thalia was beaming from ear to ear with her notebook folded and tucked into the outside pocket of her backpack. We followed her back to the park and found ourselves among crowds of normal people for the first time in years. "The house is two miles down that trail."

"Why do you think your brother will be at this house?" I asked as we started down a trail that few people even paid attention to.

"He won't be, but this is the last place I saw him." Thalia explained. "My mother took us out here for a picnic when I was seven, Jason was two. My mom had too much to drink and I fell asleep and Jason was gone. I think this is just a good place to start, maybe my dad will give us a sign or something."

"Jason's a child of Zeus too?" Luke asked tightening the straps of his backpack.

"I think so, Zeus was furious when Jason was born, but I really don't remember." It really didn't matter, the point of this quest was to find out what happened to Jason Grace and we were going to succeed. We couldn't help but stare at the scenery, we had been at Camp Half-Blood for so long that we knew nearly every nook and cranny, but this was new. Kids were playing in the park, they didn't know that monsters existed.

"We need to get out more." Luke joked and we all laughed, the trail became slightly over grown and we all became focused on not tripping on roots that struggled to eat a trail that people didn't travel down often. We eventually got to a clearing, it was a whole separate park, but it was also empty.

"There, there it is." Thalia said pointing to a stone building set into the woods, it was a careful work of art and even without my love of architecture I could tell it was very old. It had a strange aura about it, we approached it slowly, we shouldn't be here.

We kept going though, and as we got there I saw a wolf running through the woods. "So this house, do you remember being here?" I asked as Thalia walked around the perimeter of the house. "This doesn't look right." I finally said.

"What do you mean?" Thalia asked coming around the corner.

"The structure of this house. It isn't Greek and it isn't pre-industrial American either." I said peeking through the threshold.

"What do you think it is? Luke asked peeking through a window.

"My best guess, but it's impossible, it looks Roman." I said with a shrug, no one knew what to make of that information so we checked nearly every stone in the structure looking for something, anything. The only person that walked inside the Wolf House was Thalia, when I walked up to the threshold my stomach filled with knots and it was as though the worst thing in the world would actually happen if I walked inside, and by the look on Luke's face he got the same feeling.

"So what now?" Luke asked reflecting sunlight off his sword.

"I have to go home." Thalia said softly, I must have misheard her, Luke ground his teeth together and tucked his sword back in his waistband.

"Are you sure about that?" Luke asked trying to box me out of the conversation.

"Don't worry unless I tell you to worry. I planned this quest out and we have to talk to my mom, she was the last one to see Jason." Thalia explained, side stepping so she could make reassuring eye contact with me.

"Where does your mom live?" I asked with a shrug.

"Colorado, I do need your help figuring out how to get there though. I'm not getting back into that damned cab." We all agreed and started to walk back through the trail. "How long do you think it would take us to walk there?"

"Weeks." Luke said with a scoff. "We could see if there's a way to fly."

"No." Thalia said with such intensity no one questioned her. "We'll see how much a train costs, then a bus, and we'll see if we can ride a horse drawn carriage before we fly. I would rather walk for months than fly."

"Alright, anybody got an in with Apollo? Rumor has it he's got a sweet ride." I shook my head.

"Maybe we can mail ourselves? Your dad is in charge of that right?" I asked Luke, Luke just began to laugh hysterically.

"I don't think my dad will help us, he's got a lot of kids, like twice as many as any other cabin so putting ourselves in the mail will just get us in trouble." I sighed and tried not to trip on the roots attacking my feet. "Nice thinking though Annie."

"We'll figure it out." We walked for hours, but we didn't get far before we all had blistered feet, growling stomachs, and terrible attitudes. Luke fell back into his old ways and street smarts without any trouble and already had stolen a map, better than the one that Thalia had printed out at camp, and we were trying to find a well-populated area that he might be able to pickpocket a few extra dollars for a train.

Thalia seemed to be having the time of her life, this quest was everything she dreamed, even though the most we had done in the last twenty four hours was walk. "Hey Thalia." Luke said jogging to catch up to her hurried strides. "I'm starving, we haven't eaten, let's stop and get some food." Thalia seemed to shake herself out of s stupor.

"Yeah, food." She seemed to glance around at our surroundings for the first time in hours. "It looks like there's a few fast food places a couple blocks away." She said looking up the street. She started walking towards the florescent lights leaving Luke and I to follow her once again. We followed Thalia into a rather empty shop that seemed to serve a little bit of everything, Thalia pulled out the money she had saved up and paid for everything we ordered.

"So." Luke said with a sigh and relaxing in his chair.

"What?" Thalia asked opening a ketchup packet with her teeth.

"We need to find somewhere to sleep, it's getting pretty late." Luke insisted. Thalia sighed.

"I wanted to get to my mom's house today." Thalia had a disappointed tone, but she also knew that we had hardly made a dent in the amount of traveling we needed to get done. "Can I see the map?" The two of them began looking for a place we could set up our tent and not be found by monsters or the police.

"How much money do we have left?"

"Thirty dollars." Thalia said softly. "That's about two hours walk, but we'll be three hours away from the train station, we can do that."

"Thirty isn't enough for a train to Colorado." Luke said in a pacifying tone, there was no way he wanted to upset Thalia at a time like this.

"I know, we'll see what we can do. I don't like you stealing but if we have to then we have to."

"You guys panhandle and if we don't have enough by the time we have to buy our ticket I'll take care of it, okay?" Thalia nodded and we all shoveled food into our aching stomachs, we had nothing positive to say, just complaints about our blistered feet. We each filled up our water bottles in the fountain and set back along the road.

"I didn't even think about this, we could try hitchhiking." Thalia said with a brightness in her voice. My heart stopped, my chest got tight, my hands began to shake, but I kept my head down and shuffled my feet along. "We might even be able to find someone to take us all the way to the train station."

"Sure!" Luke exclaimed. "They probably won't pick up all three of us though, maybe we can take turns walking ahead and two of us will hide off the side of the road." I started hyperventilating. My legs turned to lead, I couldn't lift a single foot off the ground.

"What's wrong? What happened?" I don't know when Thalia rushed over to me, and I have no clue when I started crying.

"I can't." I struggled to stop crying, but I could hardly breathe. Thalia wrapped her arms around my tightly.

"What's going on? Should I get help?" Luke asked anxiously.

"No, just, just give us a minute." Luke walked away slowly. "Breathe Annabeth, I'm right here, whatever it is, it's okay." I clenched my jaw tightly and tried to match breathing patterns with Thalia. "You're okay, you're safe here."

"I can't hitchhike, I'm sorry I just can't." I exhaled.

"No one will make you, we won't hitchhike that's the end of it." Thalia said with finality. "It's over, we aren't going to do it. We'll just keep walking no one's upset I swear." I nodded and fought down the anxiety before drying my tears furiously. "Okay?" I nodded inhaling deeply to keep control of my nerves. She let go of me and smiled, I gave her back a shaky smile.

Luke was walking slowly ahead of us, but Thalia made no attempt to catch up with him, we just kept his pace twenty feet behind him. Thalia held tightly to my hand and we walked in silence for a little while.

"I know I promised I would never make you talk about before we met, but I want you to know that I'm here if you ever want to talk." I nodded, and then thought about it. Thalia didn't know much about the time before she saved me in a dirty motel room, and other than asking about where my parents were she didn't ask any questions at all.

"I ran away from home after I got in a fight with my step-mom." I said simply. "Riley picked me up off the street and offered to drive me to New York, by the time we actually got there he said that he had called my parents to come pick me up but they never showed. I lived with him for over a year." I shrugged, Thalia was smart she could piece together the rest without my help.

"I will always be here for you I hope you know that." I nodded and walked a little faster to catch up with Luke. "We're just going to have to walk. You were a master pick pocket back on our first run away excursion, think you still have those skills?" Luke smiled in a mischievous way.

"Those skills have only gotten better with time Thalia." Whatever tension there had been was now gone and Luke didn't ask any questions. We made it into a decent sized shopping strip and Luke got to work pick pocketing, ten dollars here, five dollars there and Thalia made him return the wallets to their original owners. We had enough money to stock up on more supplies and a hot meal, it was wonderful, we found the back corners of someone's property and set up our tent for the night.

We sat around a small fire and cleaned our weapons showing off our best impersonations of our least favorite teachers, but Luke won with a spectacular reenactment of Mr. D being frustrated with his wine pouring abilities. Once we had finished getting our gear ready for tomorrow Thalia spread out her map again and we discussed how we were going to get to the train station.

"We'll get up at eight tomorrow and we'll get to the station around noon. I don't know the train schedule, but we can figure it out. We mostly need to figure out how much money we need for some tickets." Luke nodded and let out a loud yawn. "You guys are awesome." I smiled and prodded at the hot coals with my sword. "If we're lucky a train to Colorado will be leaving the day after tomorrow, if that's the way it is we'll be at my Mom's house by the end of the week."

"Awesome, I hope your mom knows how to cook, I'm not a fan of fast food anymore. Camp food has ruined that for me." Thalia didn't say anything, she never talked much about her mother, but the closer we got I could tell she wasn't really excited to go home.

"I'm going to take first watch." Thalia said with a smile. Luke nodded and went into the tent with a short good night.

"Are you alright?" I asked after hearing Luke collapse onto his cot.

"Yeah I'm fine." Thalia said with a forced smile.

"I know you help me with my problems a lot, I don't want you to think you always have to take care of me. I'm here to listen too." Thalia draped her arm around my shoulders and I leaned into her side. We didn't talk about anything we just watched as the fire burnt itself down and the stars took over the sky.

"You should get some sleep Annie. I'll switch with Luke in a few hours." I nodded and collected my stuff before walking in the tent. I fell onto my cot and was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

"Hey Annabeth." Luke said softly. I sat up holding my knife tightly in my hand. "I just need some company keeping watch, I'm exhausted." I got up and got dressed and grabbed my bag and followed Luke outside. He had another small fire crackling taking the edge off the early morning cold front. "There's only a few hours until Thalia will wake up, I'm just a terrible morning person."

"It's okay." I pulled out a deck of playing cards and started dealing a hand of poker to Luke.

"Want some hot chocolate?" He asked handing me a thermos.

"Where in the world did you get hot chocolate?" I asked taking the thermos and enjoying a large mouthful of the warm sugary drink.

"Don't tell Thalia." Was the only answer he provided. Poker between a son of Hermes and a daughter of Athena is always one worth watching. Luke is a master at making me question my strategy, making me wonder if I had calculated probabilities just right or if I was completely wrong. After a few competitive hands we relaxed a little bit and watched the sun begin to rise over the fields around us. Luke was practicing card tricks and managed over and over to make cards disappear.

"How did you and Thalia meet?" I asked picking a card from his out stretched hand and replacing it in the deck.

"I got in some trouble at school with some monsters, accidently set the cafeteria on fire, but Thalia was passing through and she was with Grover. We headed to camp from there and bumped into you on the way." He said simply.

"I set the gym of my old school on fire, well I didn't do it, monster cheerleaders did." Luke let out a little laugh.

"My monsters were the debate team, I guess we aren't cut out for extracurricular activities." I snorted. "Is this your card?"

"No." Luke's face fell and he began to shuffle through the deck frantically.

"Check your pockets." I pulled the card out of my jacket pocket and tossed it at him.

"You're an idiot." Thalia came out of the tent holding all her gear.

"Luke did you do that same stupid card trick again?" Thalia asked tossing us all bagels.

"It wasn't new to Annabeth." He said simply. We ate and packed up quickly, made sure the fire was put out, and got started walking towards the train station.

We got there at noon like Thalia had planned and we were in for some good news and some terrible news. There was a train leaving for Colorado late at night, it would only take three hours to get there, but it was over a hundred dollars per ticket. Thalia came back over to where I was standing, Luke was out scouting the station.

"I think we can sneak onto the train. I've done it before, but one of us needs to buy a ticket so we need eighty dollars." Thalia tried not to sound frustrated, but at the same time she was just pissed off at the next road block in our quest.

"Here you go." Luke started handing out ice cream cones.

"Damnit Luke we can't just spend all the money we have on this stuff." Thalia said refusing to take the cone.

"Well it's done now, sorry I'll stop spending the money, but the ice cream is going to melt if you don't eat it." Luke said waving the cone towards her. Thalia took the cone from him just to get it away from him. "What's wrong with her?" Luke asked me as Thalia walked away and tossed the cone into the nearest trash can.

"We're eighty bucks short of being able to afford one ticket. She thinks we'll be able to all sneak on the train if we can just get that one ticket, the train leaves tonight." I explained catching a few drips running down my cone.

"Well I better get to work then." Luke said with a mischievous grin, we finished our cones and I kept an eye out for security guards as Luke began pickpocketing again. By the time we found Thalia we already had the money to buy the ticket and some dinner. Thalia began devising a plan to get us all on the train without getting caught and Luke went up to buy the ticket since he looked the oldest so that left me to buy dinner for everyone with the left over money. The atmosphere was lifted as another one of Thalia's plans came together, we were on the train and headed towards Colorado Springs. I jumped out of the luggage hold above Luke's seat and Thalia came out of the bathroom after they checked his ticket.

It had taken a decent amount of hiding and running away, but we managed to get on the train without getting caught. It had now picked up speed and we were successfully on our way to Colorado. About an hour into the trip the excitement of sneaking onto the train had disappeared, we were exhausted, and we were all missing camp.

"Tickets please." A female voice hissed beside us. We all jumped and Thalia actually rose from her seat before giving the woman a shaky smile.

"We already gave someone our tickets." Luke said calmly. I eyed the woman carefully, she had milk white skin, dark brown hair, and eyes that were a rusty red color. Her eyes flicked over to me and she smiled revealing teeth that seemed a little too sharp.

"I know you already gave away your ticket, I'm looking at your friends here." Thalia's face became set in stone, but she still looked confident. She fished two strips of paper out of her pocket and handed them to the woman.

"Here are our tickets, we were a little late finding our seats." Thalia said with such confidence that even I believed she had managed to find tickets somewhere. I watched as the pale woman looked at the pieces of paper and I watched as a light fog drifted around them and they began to resemble tickets.

"Very well." The woman said with gentle nod. She pocketed our tickets and continued to walk down the car.

"That was odd." I whispered so the woman couldn't hear us.

"She must have walked through earlier and noticed we weren't here before." Thalia said simply. "I'm not very good at manipulating the Mist, but I think it worked." Thalia turned and stared at the dark window.

"No that woman, I don't think she was human." I whispered looking around the car just to be positive she was gone.

"Annie not everyone that makes you nervous is a monster. She was weird, but she wasn't a monster." Luke scoffed. I felt a little defeated, had no one else seen her pointed teeth. I knew you could change your eye color with contacts but it looked so real, and she was so pale, but everyone else had moved on.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke up to Thalia shaking me gently. I jerked up, but Thalia knelt down in front of me. "It's okay, it's just me." I nodded and tried to re-orient myself, Luke made a point not to look at me as though he was the one embarrassed. I put on my backpack and we began walking off the train. "We're here already, I thought it would have taken at least a week longer to get here." Thalia was beaming while Luke and I yawned. I looked back to make sure we hadn't left anything at our seats and saw the ticket woman following us. She smiled and locked eyes with me, those teeth weren't normal, it was obvious now. I looked for Thalia and Luke and saw that they had already gotten off the train, I jumped off and sprinted to catch up with them.

"I'm exhausted Thalia, let's go sleep somewhere, anywhere. The Mist will make our tent look like a construction zone or something, no one will bother us let's just put it here." Luke said in a whiny voice.

"There's a patch of trees right over there. You can make it buddy." Thalia said folding up the map and sticking it back in her pocket.

Suddenly the train station was deserted, everyone that had gotten off the train with us was gone. They all had someone at the station to pick them up or a cab to catch and we were alone, except for the woman that had checked our tickets a second time. "We need to go. Now." I said grabbing both of their elbows and pulling them along.

"Calm down Annabeth, Gods you're such a spaz sometimes." Luke huffed jerking his arm out of my grasp.

"Leave her alone Luke, it's fine Annie, we're leaving." Thalia was tired too, this was a terrible time to get attacked by whatever was following us. Just then a paper white hand grabbed Luke's collar and he was dragged away from us at an alarming rate. Thalia pulled out her sword and stepped in front of me, but the woman was already ten feet away and holding onto Luke tightly, her pointed teeth bared.

"You should have listened to the little one." Her voice was soft, always soft, but it sent shivers down my spine. "You're all trouble makers but no one is as bad as this son of Hermes." She gave a slight tug on Luke's shaggy, dirty blonde hair. "Stealing, lying, running away, and sneaking onto trains. You had better be ashamed of yourself."

"Who do you think you are? My mother?" Luke asked twisting around trying to break the woman's hold. She grabbed him by the ear, it looked rather painful, but Luke looked more frustrated than anything.

"Your mother? Your poor, poor mother? I wish I was her, I would do a much better job. But it's not her fault, you drove her crazy acting out all the time." That set Luke off in an instant. He managed to get a grip on his sword and kicked the woman away, but she was blindingly fast.

"You don't know my mother." Luke spat. Thalia stepped in but she was making fools of the both of them, there had to be a better way to defeat this, this thing? Who was this and what did she want?

"Daughter of Zeus step away, it's not your turn." Thalia lunged forward ignoring the advice of the demon lady, she was immediately sprawled out on the ground. She jumped to her feet, embarrassed, and charged again. This time the woman grabbed forearm and swung her around. She tossed Thalia right into a pillar, Thalia sank down to the ground and I ran forward to take her place in front of Luke.

"Annie go check on Thalia, I can do this." Luke said in a gravely tone.

"Who are you?" I spat at the woman, ignoring Luke's demand.

"Ah, I've had many names in many cultures, I am the object of every child's nightmares. I am the Boogeyman, the monster that gets children that don't do as they're told. I, daughter of Athena, am Mormo." Her eyes flashed red.

"Why Luke? We all ran away from camp, we've all gotten in trouble." I asked making sure I stayed aware of her movements, hoping she would make a mistake and an opening for me to attack.

"He's a menace." She hissed. "And I'm so hungry, I only plan to eat him first. Then that child of Zeus, and finally you." She eyed me carefully. How was it that all monsters could see through me?

"You want to eat me?" Luke asked with a look of utter disgust. She turned her attention to him and I saw my opening, in one swift, rehearsed movement I threw my dagger at her chest, I was off, but it imbedded itself in her shoulder and provided Luke with more than enough distraction and he closed the distance between himself and Mormo.

Her fingernails turned into sharp claws and her teeth seemed to grow, she pulled out my dagger and tossed it aside though her open wound smoked she seemed otherwise uninjured. I grabbed Thalia's sword off the ground and blocked every attack Mormo made towards Luke.

"Daughter of Athena you've been confused all this time, do you even know who to listen to anymore?" I ignored her, what did she know? "You ran away from your parents, the only man you could call friend, the home your mother gave you. If you actually knew better you would be worse than this Hermes boy."

"You don't know me." I grumbled slicing the fingernails off one clawed hand. Mormo growled and her eyes seemed to turn to flames. She grabbed the blade of Luke's sword and even though her fingers began to smoke she pulled him towards her and bit him on the shoulder.

I swung Thalia's weapon without hesitation and her head rolled across the linoleum floor before crumbling to dust. Luke swore loudly and pulled his shirt away to look at the puncture holes on his shoulder. "Thanks Annabeth, I owe you one." I tucked both my weapon and Thalia's into my belt and turned to check on Thalia.

She was conscious, but holding her head in her hands. I fished out a few squares of ambrosia and made sure she ate them before having her wash it down with a mouthful of nectar. "How's your head?" I asked looking around to make sure the station was still empty.

"Concussed." She answered simply. Luke picked up Thalia's backpack and helped her to her feet.

"You just need some rest, you'll have more ambrosia in the morning and when you feel better we'll keep going towards your house." I walked beside the two of them, I wasn't tall enough to help Thalia walk, but she seemed to be doing okay on her own. We made it to the patch of trees Thalia had pointed out on the map and Luke set up the tent while I kept an eye on her. We helped her into her cot and she fell asleep rather quickly.

"How's your shoulder?" I asked Luke as I began to clean Thalia's sword.

"Ate some ambrosia, I think it's okay. I'll have a pretty wicked scar though."

"Not if you eat a little more ambrosia." I grumbled scrubbing at the ash and monster blood on her blade.

"That's not nearly as cool." He sat beside me and pulled out his own sword. "About the things Mormo said, about my mom and all." His voice trailed away.

"I don't want to talk about what she said about me, and we don't have to talk about what she said about you." I said quickly.

"Wait, when did she talk about you?" Luke asked snapping out of whatever trance he was in.

"The whole time we were fighting, did you hit your head too?" I asked with a little smile.

"No, the whole time we were fighting she was talking to me about my mother. I didn't know she could do that. Thanks for saving my ass by the way." He nudged me in the side. "I know I forget how cool you are, you're a good kid." I felt my face turn red but I got started cleaning my own dagger and Luke and I turned in for the night, hoping that the Mist around the tent would be enough to protect us for one night.

I woke up before everyone else and checked to make they were okay and got started on breakfast. Thalia was the next to wake up, I handed her another square of ambrosia and she took it without complaint. "I feel like I got hit with a brick." She said washing it down with another mouthful of nectar before taking a small helping of granola.

"You did hit a brick wall so I guess that counts. We can rest for another day if you need to." I said simply.

"No we were already found by one monster, don't need to attract anymore right away." She chewed on her granola slowly as though it was causing her discomfort. "You were right about her being a monster, sorry about that. What did she want?"

"To eat Luke, apparently she eats bad kids, we're bad kids." I said with a shrug.

"Well ain't that the truth?" She chuckled, but stopped quickly looking rather nauseated.

Luke woke up five minutes later and after he ate and showed off his scar while relaying every vivid detail of the monster attack to Thalia I packed up the tent and lightened Thalia's backpack so that she wouldn't have to carry so much for the next few hours.

"Keep an eye on Thalia, we'll try and stop every couple of hours so she can rest." I nodded and we began walking again. We didn't get far before we had to call it a day and let Thalia sleep, but by the next morning she was almost back to a hundred percent. We didn't cover as many miles as we had planned to cover when we first got to Colorado Springs but we were only two days off schedule, and by the third day Thalia was back to tip-top shape.

Five days later in the middle of the night, we walked quietly through a suburban neighborhood. We made sure we looked like kids having a good time that stayed out a little too late and were rushing to get home. We ended up in front of a home where the grass was cut perfectly and everything seemed to be in its proper place, we tentatively followed Thalia up the winding stone path being sure to follow her every step.

Thalia held a key in her shaking hand, took a few steadying breaths and unlocked the door and pushed it open. We entered the Grace home tentatively, Luke probably knew more about Thalia's mom than I did, but I knew enough to be worried. Thalia kicked off her shoes and motioned for us to do the same. "Luke you'll stay in the guest room and Annie I'll show you my room." I followed Thalia to her bedroom and dropped all my stuff into a corner, we each took a shower and raided the fridge.

"So where's your mom?" Luke asked through a mouthful of ham and cheese.

"Probably at a bar." Thalia said simply. "Don't worry about it, and don't bring anything up. I'll talk to her about Jason, you guys are just my friends visiting from school okay?" We both nodded.

Just as we were finishing up in the kitchen Mrs. Grace stumbled inside, she looked around at the three of us, saw Thalia, and broke out into a bleary smile. "Hi mom." Thalia said quickly jumping up and giving her a hug that also seemed to support most of her weight. "I came from school to visit for a few days, these are my friends Luke and Annabeth." Mrs. Grace continued to smile. "You look really tired mom." Thalia said casually.

"I am." Her smile wavering a little, but she looked up at Luke and me and her smile returned. "I want to meet your friends, they're such good kids." Mrs. Grace mumbled. Thalia began to lead her up the stairs.

"You can meet them tomorrow mom, let me tuck you in." I heard a bedroom door click shut.

"We should go to bed." Luke said after clearing his throat as though he was trying to clear away the awkward silence. I helped him clean up the kitchen and we walked upstairs, Luke was staying in the guest room, while Thalia and I shared her room. I placed my knife on her bedside table and climbed into bed. Ten minutes later Thalia came back to her room and sighed heavily.

"You okay?" I asked. Thalia didn't say anything for a few seconds and just as I started to get worried she forced out a smile and jumped into bed beside me.

"I'm fine, no worries." I made sure she had enough covers and relaxed on the first mattress I had seen in weeks.

Thalia was rummaging around the room, early in the morning, way before the sun was up. I picked up a pillow and tossed it at her, but she ignored me and left the room, shutting the door behind her. I fell back asleep, but awoke what had to be less than an hour later, something was burning.

I grabbed my dagger and jumped up and stumbling around the dark, unfamiliar room, before throwing the door open and blinking at the harsh florescent light in Thalia's hallway. "What's going on?" Luke grumbled rubbing his eyes.

"What are you doing? Just get out." Thalia's voice cried.

"Stay here." Luke said quickly before dashing down the stairs, then he sprinted back up. "Put that away, it's just Thalia and her mom." I tossed my dagger onto the bed and followed Luke down the stairs. We stopped at the kitchen in time to see Thalia throw open windows and turn on the fan above the oven.

"Look what you made me do." Her mother screeched scraping at something on the stove.

"Mom just go sit down and I'll take care of this." Thalia tried, Luke cleared his throat loudly and Mrs. Grace spun around.

"Oh look your friends are awake. Hello! I'm Mrs. Grace, Thalia's mother. I made you breakfast." She said holding up the pan containing scorched bacon beyond repair. Thalia's eyes flashed with embarrassment and Luke let out a winning smile.

"Thank you so much Mrs. Grace, I'm Luke and this is Annabeth. We're just going to get dressed and we'll be right back." Luke placed his hand on my shoulder and we started to walk up the stairs.

"No, you can get dressed later just sit down." Luke made brief eye contact with Thalia and she gave him an encouraging nod to sit at the table. "Thalia you ruined breakfast for your friends, I don't know why you did that." Mrs. Grace huffed and slammed the pan down in the sink. I jumped in my seat and Luke placed a comforting hand on my arm.

"It's fine Annie." He whispered. I stared down at the patterned table cloth and tried to ignore the anxiety building up in my stomach.

"Mom I'll fix it I promise, please just sit down and talk with Annabeth and Luke, they'd love to meet you." Thalia's voice proved that she was more than ready to leave. We had hardly been here for ten hours and she was ready to move on.

"Don't talk to me like that in front of company, I swear that school has just made you worse. You're still getting in fights no doubt?" Thalia clenched her teeth together and let out a loud sigh.

"No mom I haven't gotten in trouble all year." Thalia scrubbed out the burnt food and began cooking again. "But these are my best friends at school, they would tell you what I've been up to." Mrs. Grace eyed Thalia suspiciously.

"You know I hate that jacket I don't know why you insist on wearing it, what would your father say?" Mrs. Grace walked over to us with a bright smile entirely different than what she had just shown Thalia. I glanced over at Thalia, someone that had always looked so strong and in charge, her shoulders were slumped and she wiped her face furiously, but never turned away from the stove. "Look at you kids, tell me everything about yourselves." Mrs. Grace had an orange juice in her hand, but anyone could smell that it wasn't just orange juice.

"My name is Luke Castellan, it's really nice to meet you." Luke said outstretching his hand.

"Beryl Grace, you can call me Beryl. Are you a demi-god as well? You go to a school for demi-gods right? Do they let mortal children into that school of yours Thalia?" Mrs. Grace called back into the kitchen. Luke let out what appeared to be a well-rehearsed smile.

"No they don't allow mortal children, at least not that I'm aware of. So yeah Annabeth and I are both demi-gods, my father is Hermes and Annabeth's mother is Athena." I tried to smile the same way that Luke was, maybe it would make Thalia's mother less intimidating, but she had an aura around her. Something about her let me know that there was line with her and avoiding it was in everybody's best interest. "I'm studying chemistry and a couple accounting classes, but I'm really good at capture the flag."

"Hm, you're pretty cute too." Mrs. Grace said glancing between Thalia and Luke. "Thalia you didn't say you had a boyfriend, Luke maybe you can get her dressing a little more like a girl." The tops of Luke's ears burned a dark red. Thalia walked over with a high stack of pancakes and bacon with a side of eggs, she looked at Luke with apologetic eyes.

"Luke isn't my boyfriend mom." She said simply.

"Well he wants to be, don't you?" Mrs. Grace asked Luke, but she didn't wait for an answer she turned her piercing gaze to me and my heart rate sped up immediately. "What about you Annabeth, daughter of Athena? What do you do at school?"

"I'm studying architecture and philosophy, a lot of history of war classes. I want to be an architect, if I keep doing well in my classes I might be able to do a project on campus soon." I managed to choke out, Mrs. Grace looked me up and down in the menacing manner and just when I was convinced she hated me she smiled.

"What smart friends you have." She beamed. "How old are the two of you?"

"I'm thirteen and Annabeth is almost ten." Luke said helping himself to extra pieces of bacon and drenching everything in syrup, he was going to be bouncing off the walls in a few minutes.

"How did you get such smart friends?" She asked turning to Thalia.

"Thalia is one of the best at school, she can do some things you wouldn't even imagine." I said cutting up my pancake. Mrs. Grace's face turned back into the hard critical expression it appeared to be most comfortable in.

"I don't know why you couldn't do that when you lived here. I paid for the best schools and the best tutors, you know you're all I have left and you couldn't help getting kicked out of every damn school I paid for." I didn't know what to say, I thought I had just given Thalia a complement, but it had already been turned into something negative. I struggled to find something to say but Thalia shook her head slightly and handed me what was left of the bacon. "So what are you studying at school, your friends have astoundingly bright futures, what about you?"

"I'm studying battle strategy and leadership, I'm really good with weaponry and politics." Thalia said without much enthusiasm. Mrs. Grace scoffed before Thalia was even finished.

"A politician, just like your father. You left me just like he did too, at least you come back home every once in a while, get me another orange juice." She handed Thalia her empty glass and without hesitation Thalia stood up to fill it. "Your brother was such a sweet boy, he would have done me right." Luke didn't seem to be hearing any of this and so I pretended I didn't either. No one else talked for the rest of breakfast and as Luke and I finished and began to help clean up the kitchen but Mrs. Grace made us come and sit in the living room and left Thalia to clean the kitchen herself.

We looked at pictures of Mrs. Grace from when she was an actress and then we watched movie after movie while Thalia made her drink after drink. The longer we stayed around Mrs. Grace the less Thalia would talk and the more Mrs. Grace drank the more she would say negative things about Thalia until noon hit and she was asleep on the couch.

"You guys want to go for a walk?" Thalia asked in a hollow sort of voice, dumping the rest of the orange juice down the sink. I turned off the movie that was playing and ran upstairs to get dressed now that Mrs. Grace wasn't telling stories her and Zeus on such and such movie set. When we all met in the living room to head outside Thalia had tucked a blanket around her mother and placed a glass of water beside her head.

We followed her outside and she led us to a park that appeared as though it hadn't seen any children in centuries. "Jason used to love to come here with me, we would pretend we were the only people left on the planet." Thalia said quietly. "Sorry my mom talks so much, but she really likes you guys, one time I brought home a friend from my old school and my mom made her cry so she had to go home." I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a funny story and by the look on Thalia's face she couldn't tell either.

Luke and I had to figure out a way to cheer her up, and the only thing we could think of was to play capture the flag. I hid my flag inside the old slide and waited for Thalia to call out that she was ready before charging Luke's flag. It was probably one of the worst battle strategies I had ever come up with, but then again the goal wasn't winning the game of capture the flag, the goal was to make sure Thalia knew that we cared, even if that meant kicking her ass at her favorite game. Once I managed to disarm Luke we decided to join forced and gang up on Thalia, well actually he would defend my flag, which was against the rules, while I would try and fend off her attack.

After a few swift blocks on her part a smile began to inch across her face and soon she and I were sparing as we always did. I don't know how it looked from the outside, but I countered every attack and struck back twice as hard only to have them deflected by her sword. If we didn't get tired we could have gone on for hours, but eventually she managed to knock my dagger out of my hand, just like she always did and ran off to fight Luke who had been taunting her from the slide.

Thalia was exhausted and Luke had recovered from the match we had earlier, but the fight was still amazing. Luke smirked as a hole opened up to Thalia's right just when he was about to gain the advantage Thalia's sword expanded into a beautiful spear, Luke's sword flew out of his hand and flew yards away. Thalia swung the butt of her spear and knocked Luke off his feet.

"No fair." Luke said struggling to catch his breath. Thalia pulled the two flags out of his back pocket and began laughing. "Since when did you have a spear?"

"Since now, I guess my sword is also a spear." Thalia spun it around a couple times. "It feels amazing." Her brows furrowed in concentration and the spear collapsed back into a sword. We started walking back towards Thalia's house and she draped her arms around us. "You guys are the best, I really needed that."

We kicked off our shoes as we entered the house and saw that Mrs. Grace was gone. Thalia didn't seem concerned so Luke and I didn't say anything, we made ourselves more sandwiches for dinner and gathered around the television. We didn't have many televisions at camp, and we absorbed as much junk TV shows as we possibly could. It was well past midnight when Mrs. Grace stumbled home.

Luke dragged me upstairs as Thalia and her mother began arguing. There shouts reached the top floor of the house, but Luke tried to distract me. "Why does Mrs. Grace always do that to Thalia, anytime we say something nice about her she just makes it sound terrible." Luke shrugged.

"Thalia's mom is sick, I think losing Jason made her really upset." I nodded and we tried to watch TV in Jason's old room. We tried to ignore the screams and screeches from downstairs, but after an hour they died out all by themselves. Someone stomped up the stairs and threw Jason's door open, Thalia stood there fuming and flopped on the bed.

"Sorry." She mumbled, we shrugged like it didn't bother us. "We should go to bed, it's almost four in the morning." I followed Thalia back to her room and I fell asleep almost instantly and when I woke up the next morning I knew Thalia hadn't slept at all.

The next day went a lot like the first, but apparently Mrs. Grace had left in the morning for brunch so there was less arguing with breakfast. She must have driven herself home because she stumbled into the front hall around two in the afternoon and threw her keys at the key hook. "Thalia I'm hungry." She called throughout the house. Thalia jumped up and began making her mother something to eat, with a large glass of water. Mrs. Grace didn't eat any of it though she just fell asleep on the couch.

She woke up in time for dinner but just began drinking where she had left off. "I think I'm going to go out and meet someone." Mrs. Grace said as she finished dinner and her third cranberry vodka.

"Mom it's almost time for me to go back to camp, why don't you stay home with me?" Thalia asked.

"All you're going to do is leave me, let me have a life for once. You're always worried about nothing." Mrs. Grace stood up from the table and stumbled out of the house, it horrified me that she would drive like that but there was nothing we could do about it.

"Hey Thalia, is that an old Nintendo64 over there?" Thalia picked up our dirty dishes and tossed them into the sink, but nodded towards Luke. "Come on, I'll play you." Luke started up Mario Kart and Thalia joined us once the kitchen was clean.

When Mrs. Grace finally came home Luke and I returned to his room to avoid the arguing, but tonight it didn't last nearly as long, I fell asleep in Luke's room and they stayed up all night talking.

Breakfast the next morning was rather quiet, but delicious. Luke set up the Nintendo again and we began racing while Thalia stayed at the table with her mother.

"Hey mom I came home to see if the police have found out anything about Jason?" Mrs. Grace didn't say anything. "I was wondering if you could tell me again what happened. I think I can find him, I can bring him home, or at least find out what happened to him."

"Always bringing up Jason, can't you see how much it hurts me? Do you know how badly I feel every time you ask what happened to your little brother? He is my son you ungrateful little"-

"No mom, it's not that at all I just want to help." Thalia pleaded. "We were at the park, it was beautiful out and then he was gone."

"I know it was my fault. Your father was there, and I shouldn't have done what I did, but Jason is gone and you have to accept it." The voices continued to get louder and louder. Thalia had stopped talking, but Mrs. Grace was on a tangent.

"Dad was there?" Thalia asked. There was a loud smack and the kitchen got quiet. Luke jumped up and motioned for me to continue playing the game. The three of them began arguing and I didn't know how I did it but my mind drifted away and I watched myself play the game from the ceiling.

"Annie it's time to go." Luke said touching my shoulder gently, I snapped back into my body and saw that it was dark outside. Luke handed me my backpack and my knife and motioned for me to put my shoes on, Mrs. Grace was gone and Thalia was lacing up her combat boots in the corner. As we stepped outside I saw that Thalia had a black eye and quickly looked away.

Thalia was silent for hours as we walked away from her mother's house. We had spent a total of three days there, and they were three days that had taken a serious toll on Thalia. Luke kept trying to get her to talk, but I could tell Thalia was really upset.

We were miles away from Mrs. Grace's home before we actually tried to figure out where to go next. This was Thalia's quest, she was supposed to be leading us, but right now she just needed some time. Luke snatched someone's wallet and grabbed a couple dollars before chasing the man down and returning it. Luke dragged us into a sub shop and bought us all food, Thalia just stared at her sandwich and didn't make a move to actually eat it.

"My dear, what happened to your eye?" A soft motherly voice said beside us, we had gotten used to mortals ignoring us and this sudden interaction caused us all to jump. "Stay right here, I'm going to get you some ice." The woman said quickly.

"That's weird." Luke grumbled. "We should go." Thalia shook her head and so we waited for the woman to come back with a bag of ice for Thalia's eye.

"You all look exhausted, have a rough day at school?" None of us said anything. "Do you live around here?" Thalia shook her head, this was freaking me out. My heart was pounding in my ears, this woman knew too much, we needed to leave. "Did you runaway?"

"Actually we were just about to leave." I said, jumping up from the table.

"We're here in town visiting, I got into an accident." Thalia's voice broke through the awkward silence.

"That's terrible, come here. All of you, I live across the street let me make you guys something better than sandwiches." I glanced at Luke for him to step in and stop this, but Thalia stood up and followed this woman out of the shop leaving Luke and I there. We scrambled to collect our gear and pack away the sandwiches for later, while keeping an eye on Thalia. Finally when we had everything we ran out of the restaurant after her, just in time to see her walk into a building with the woman we had just met.

"Thalia hold the door." Luke called running out into traffic with only his hand up to stop oncoming cars. Somehow we survived crossing the street and ended up in the same building as Thalia. "What are you thinking? We don't know this woman." Luke said holding on to her arm so she couldn't actually walk through the door.

"No, something good has to come out of this quest." Thalia said in a disturbing monotone.

"You're right, this quest hasn't really gone how you wanted it to go, but this is reckless and stupid." Luke said giving her arm a tug, trying to pull her away from the building. "Maybe if we went back to camp we can figure out what to do with the information we've learned about Jason. Chiron can probably help us now that we've learned more about the Wolf House."

"No, we're never going to find Jason. You guys can head back to camp. I don't think I'm going back." I had no idea what to say, this wasn't like Thalia, she had down days maybe even a few more than everyone else, but she had never given up like this. It made me sad, and then livid.

"Fine, whatever." I spat. "Let's at least eat some food first." I gave Thalia a shove towards the door, the blank expression on her face didn't change, she just followed the strange woman into her home. Luke held my hand in his and squeezed tightly.

"Be nice." Luke breathed as the woman flashed us a suspicious smile.

"You all are welcome to come over too. I have plenty of food for everyone." The woman continued in a soothing tone. Something irrational inside of me wanted to follow her into her home, I shut down that feeling the best I could before walking inside.

Luke squeezed my hand even harder, "You and I both know that she's a monster, when the time is right we get Thalia and we run. Okay?" I nodded and squeezed his hand back. We walked inside, the house was actually a house. There was a kitchen table and a television with all the video games you could imagine, Thalia was sitting quietly at the dining table and Luke and I sat on either side of her.

"Thank you for dinner." I said clearing my throat. Maybe this was just a test, maybe if we were polite she would just let us leave when dinner was over. This was entirely irrational thinking but weirder things had happened in the world of demi-gods and monsters.

It was an amazing spread of home cooked meals, it was almost like a Thanksgiving dinner, mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey with dressing, the best food we had eaten since camp. My first bite was wary, the woman still had me on edge, but after I tasted the food I couldn't help myself. I ate without any reservations stuffing my face with bite after bite. I ate so much food that I started to get drowsy, and then I was more than drowsy, I was exhausted, and then I was asleep with a small moment of panic that even though Luke and I had been suspicious we had fallen into a trap.

My head felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds, everything felt foggy and time was moving so slowly I could have been dreaming. I pried my eyes open and saw that I was sitting in a chair, I checked again, I was tied to a chair, bound in rope weaved with celestial bronze. I looked up and blinked what was left of the haze away, it wasn't just me the room was dark, I saw the night sky through the ceiling and two shadows in chairs beside me, they had to be Luke and Thalia.

It was damp, there was a small fire place off to the corner casting an eerie light, but it just revealed that we were underground somewhere. There was a noise in a dark corner, I didn't know what to do about it, I was the only one awake and I couldn't move. The noise didn't get any closer or farther away so I started thinking of something to do, there had to be a way to get out of this, there was always a way.

I wiggled and squirmed, but nothing changed, I eventually got frustrated and kicked back roughly. The chair made a loud screech across the stone floor and Luke jerked awake. He looked around, his eyes full of sleep, but woke up as soon as he saw me and Thalia. "Where are we?" He asked softly.

"Underground somewhere, I have no idea." Luke tested out his own ropes holding him to the chair before managing to wiggle his fingers into his pocket and pulled out a small, crude looking pocket knife. "I think there's something in here." I said softly nodding towards the dark corner."

"I'm so stupid, I should have picked up Thalia and ran. I shouldn't have let her gone with that lady." Luke began small sawing motions at the ropes.

"That's not going to work, it's woven with celestial bronze." I said softly.

"I made this pocket knife out of celestial bronze, I'm not a child of Hephaestus that's for sure but I thought it would come in handy." The rope began to unravel and Luke winced flexing his fingers. "This might take a while." Luke sawed at the rope for ten minutes before it gave way. By then Thalia had begun to stir, Luke stood up, stretched and began cutting at my ropes. By the time I was free Thalia had woken up, but she didn't say anything. I took Luke's knife and cut her out of the chair and as soon as the last stroke freed her from the chair a cold voice reverberated around the room.

"Well that took forever." The woman that had invited us into her home stepped into the light of the fire. "But what can I say, I literally invited you into my home and you followed me. Can't be the brightest demi-gods out there. It's like you all get stupider with every passing generation." She stoked the fire carefully and turned to us with a smile. "I hope you enjoyed dinner though." None of us said anything. I looked for our weapons, our backpacks, anything, but it was all gone. "It's my turn to eat something."

"What is with all these monsters wanting to eat us?" Luke asked gripping his flimsy pocket knife tightly. We were going to lose, we were all going to die, there was no way any of us could survive another monster attack.

"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" Thalia asked hollowly. "You said you're going to eat us you could at least tell us who you are." The woman rolled her shoulders back and stood straight up proudly.

"I am Queen Lamia and you should address me as such, and daughter of Zeus if you speak to me again I will gut you right here." Thalia didn't really seem to care.

"So, er, you're Majesty." Luke tested, Lamia regarded him as kindly as a monster could. "I really think we could be of greater use for you if we aren't digested, we're pretty smart, Annabeth could design you your own kingdom and wouldn't it look great to other monsters if you had a daughter of Zeus as your slave?" Thalia shot a look of pure venom Luke's way, but he ignored her.

"It would look even better to Zeus if I ate her and sent him the bones."

"That's just gross." Luke exclaimed.

"Hush, you know nothing." Lamia spat. "Zeus and I had children together, I am the rightful heir of Libya, and that witch Hera got jealous, she forced me to eat our children. I lost everything, and all I could see were their faces, my eyes cannot close and all I can see are the faces of my children. Zeus did nothing, and you Thalia Grace will soon be nothing." Thalia looked up, furious.

"If you want me my _Queen_ let my friends go." Thalia was standing up straight, she had a fire in her eyes.

"I eat children you brat, why would I let three go?" Lamia snapped her fingers and a five by five foot fire place roared to life, a large cauldron of water was nestled in the flames and for the first time I could see the rest of the room. We were definitely underground somewhere, there was a door at the far end of the room and a staircase winding up in another corner. "I dare you to run, you're so deep in the Labyrinth Tartarus isn't too far away." I knew enough about Greek mythology to know that both things were terrible.

"I don't understand why you chose us out of any children then. If you don't care about Thalia and you just eat children why us?" Luke look dumbfounded as if he truly was trying to figure this out.

"Children of neglectful mothers, your mothers are ungrateful of what they were given and now I will make them aware of a mistake they have made." All of us froze and refused to look at one another.

"Well that's not really true, Annabeth is a daughter of Athena." Luke sputtered.

"Athena is not exempt, Annabeth should I tell them for you?"

"No." I whimpered. Lamia stared me down, and I held her gaze for as long as I could and a smile cracked across her face.

"You're right son of Hermes, I don't have to kill all of you, I'll keep the little one." I took a half step closer to Thalia and Lamia continued to smile. "Well then, this appears easier than even I thought it would be, not even going to put up a fight." At this Luke burst forward with his sad excuse for a pocket knife and following his lead Thalia and I burst into action.

Thalia ran around, weaponless, but she didn't appear any less deadly. She still had her bracelet and it expanded into the horrible shield, Thalia swung it at Lamia's head as hard as she could and a dull clang reverberated around the cavern we were in and Luke slashed her chest with the pocket knife that promptly broke in his hand. Luke pulled his arm back and punched her in the nose. I picked up one of the chairs we had been tied to and smashed it on the floor, successfully snapping off one of its legs and charging at Lamia with it.

Without celestial bronze weapons we were doing nothing more than causing her to lose her footing, we had thought Mormo was fast but Lamia seemed accustomed to fighting demi-gods, but Thalia was a whirlwind. Whatever had been bothering her since we had left her mother's house was bubbling to the surface and Lamia was facing its wrath. After a few minutes of Luke and I striking any place we could Thalia had taken over the fight and it was just her and Lamia battling it out.

Thalia had a cut lip and her hair was disheveled, but she was bursting with energy and struck with her shield every second she could, the second Lamia fell to her knees Thalia picked up the leftover rope off the ground and wrapped it tightly around her neck. Thalia gave one sharp pull and Lamia burst into ash. "That was disturbing." Thalia muttered. "I'm so sorry, this is all my fault." Thalia looked like she was going to cry, she turned away quickly and wiped her eyes furiously.

"You are a badass." Luke shouted. "Wait till the kids at camp hear you took down a crazy lady that wanted to eat us with a shield and rope, you are totally camper of the year." Luke jumped up and pumped his fist and Thalia let out a weak smile. "I mean after we scrub dishes for six months for running away, but still, wow." Luke looked at me with bright, wild eyes as if I was supposed to add something to his rant.

"Luke said it all." I said simply. Luke began to imitate the final moments of Lamia, complete with sound effects and the sound Pac-man makes when he dies as a finale. Thalia couldn't help but burst out laughing and after a few moments we were all laughing and old Thalia was back.

When we recovered we walked around the room that was about the size of a banquet hall for our stuff, but it was gone. We each took a length of rope, which had a purpose now that Thalia had shown us that the celestial bronze woven inside could kill monsters. We huddled near the fire and had to fight down remaining giggles.

"She said we're in the Labyrinth." I told Thalia and Luke, the smiles melted off our faces. "So stairs or the door?"

"Door."

"Stairs." They looked at me for a tie breaker.

"Stairs." I said with finality, they both nodded and we climbed up the stairs for hours. I counted one as it went by my thighs burned and my back ached and we continued to spiral upwards. We reached a door and let out a sigh of relief that stopped short when we opened it and saw more stairs. Door after door led to more and more stairs, some steep some wide.

At the fourth door we finally found something different. It was a full sized room caked in dust, but there were streak marks across the floor as if something had recently been dragged across it. At the other end of the room there were more stairs but there was also stuff tossed unceremoniously tossed around the room. I went over to the closest thing and instantly recognized it.

"This is my backpack." I shouted and opened it, my dagger was right where I left it, among a book, a notebook, a water bottle, and a sweatshirt. Thalia and Luke went to the stuff tossed around the room and collected it, stuffing it back into their bags.

"The tent is missing, but we found our swords." Luke said brightly tossing the rope on in the corner. "Maybe we'll find the rest of our stuff at the end of these stairs." We rested in the room for a couple hours and continued climbing. We continued to go through doors until a bright light nearly blinded us from the other side. We stepped out into the hot sun and collapsed in the warm grass, I looked back for the door we had exited but it was gone.

"We'll just have to find somewhere else to sleep, does anyone have any idea where we are?" Thalia asked looking at the map. We all shook our heads and glanced at one another for ideas. "Let's start walking." We followed her lead, glad that she was leading again, and began walking east, it was the best we could do.

We made it to a road and continued walking until we made it to a gas station, Thalia bought a newspaper and sat on the curb beside us. "We're in Pennsylvania." Thalia said, flabbergasted.

"That can't be right." Luke said jumping up and running over to the nearest person. He came back with a look of awe on his face. "We're in Pennsylvania." He shrugged. "I'll go get a new map." He walked casually into the gas station and walked back out pulling map out of his pocket. "We're pretty close to a bus station, it'll take us pretty close to camp." We began walking towards a residential neighborhood to extinguish any suspicions and realized how close we were to returning to camp.

"It was the Labyrinth." I said, interrupting Luke and Thalia debating the fastest way to get to the Greyhound station. The looked at me as if I was supposed to continue. "The Labyrinth, it changes all the time. It must have let us out in Pennsylvania."

"Well thank you Labyrinth." Luke smiled brightly. After only a few hours of walking it was already getting dark outside, but we reached the bus station just in time to catch the last bus. Thalia bought the tickets with the last of our money and we took seats in the very back and fell asleep before the bus even left the station. It was going to be five hour drive and it was going to drop us off in New York around midnight.

We woke up when the lights on the bus turned on, we grabbed our stuff and left with the four other people on the bus. We probably looked like zombies and stumbled off the bus half awake. "We need to find a place to sleep." Thalia mumbled. Luke just started walking in a direction and we had no choice but to follow. We ended up on a street with a row of dingy motels and Luke began checking windows, he went to motel after motel before finding what he was looking for.

"Here, I found one." Luke hissed pushing the window to the motel room open and climbing inside. "It's empty." He said softly, the lights clicked on and he opened the door for us to come in.

"I'll stay outside and keep watch tonight." I shrugged.

"No we have a room, it locks from the outside we'll be safe." Thalia said with a chuckle.

"I don't want to stay here." I grumbled.

"Really you're going to act like this again?" Luke asked collapsing onto the bed near the door. I swallowed hard and tried to keep the panic inside me. "I haven't slept in a bed in almost a week, I need this." Luke huffed. I looked to Thalia in desperation but she walked inside and dropped her back pack massaging her sore shoulders.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek and stepped into a motel room for the first time since I had met Thalia and Luke. I sat on the edge of the bed Luke wasn't in and just concentrated on not having a panic attack. Thalia pulled out her map and sat across from Luke on his bed. They talked in quiet tones and marked it before Luke glanced at me and leaned closer to Thalia, "Annabeth wouldn't be able to do that."

"What wouldn't I be able to do?" I asked, I could feel myself breaking down. They were going to turn against me too.

"We're just trying to figure out the fastest way to get back to camp." Thalia shrugged.

"What can I not do?"

"Don't worry about it we just won't go that way." Luke continued looking at the map.

"I can do it if you and Thalia can." I huffed.

"You can't even stay the night in a motel without freaking out, trust me we're looking out for you." Luke said with a snort. That was it, my heart pounded in my ears and the walls began to close in on me. I tried to think of something to say to Luke that would help him understand, but it was pointless.

I ran out of the motel and Thalia chased after me. "I'm sorry Annabeth, Luke didn't mean any of it." I couldn't see through the tears in my eyes, they burned, and I hated them both. Thalia caught up to me and held me tight. "Luke is sorry, I know he is."

"I want to go back to camp, I shouldn't have run away in the first place." I know I sounded like a little kid, but they didn't understand how difficult this was for me. I constantly felt like I was going to see Riley at any moment.

"We're on our way back, don't worry. Luke won't talk about it anymore, he didn't know it would upset you."

"I'm not a baby, and I'm tired of you treating me like one. Both of you." I huffed. Thalia let go of my forearm and listened without making any expressions. "We used to talk, you and me, and now you and Luke just talk around me like I'm too little to understand."

"You're right." Thalia said softly. I felt myself swell with pride, of course I was right. "I'm sorry too. You know I'm always here if you need to talk, even if it doesn't look like I am we can always duel over our problems, okay?"

"I'd never fight with you for real." I said, my pride beginning to feel like guilt.

"I can't always speak for Luke, but, we don't mean to treat you like a baby, but I do like to think I treat you like a sister." I kicked at the cracked asphalt in the parking lot. "I swear we're headed back to camp."

"I know, I'm sorry I overreacted." I muttered.

"You didn't really overreact at all, I just wish you would tell me what you were feeling instead of being mad all the time." I chuckled a little.

"You don't have much room to talk you know." Thalia pushed the brim of my hat down in a playful manner and started walking back to the room with me. "I hate motels." I said softly.

"Why didn't you say something before?" Thalia huffed, as if everything suddenly made sense.

"I didn't want to seem like a baby, again." I responded simply.

"Why do you hate motels?"

"You'd hate them too if you had to live in one." Thalia accepted this answer. "I can survive one night in one motel, we'll be back at camp soon though?"

"Soon I swear."

Thalia sent Luke to get some food as we showered, well Thalia showered first and pretended to polish her shield in the bathroom sink while I showered so I wouldn't have a panic attack. Luke came back with a diverse array of fast food, obviously bits and pieces that had been donated and stolen, but it would have to do.

"We have to get back to camp, this food is terrible." Luke said, obviously disappointed with his catch of the day. "Listen Annie, I am sorry. I'm an idiot, you know that, but it's no excuse."

"It's okay, I just need to get a set of throwing knives." Luke and Thalia burst out in laughter and it seemed to make the cold fast food taste a little better.

I triple checked the locks on the door and windows before settling into the bed furthest from both the door and window with my dagger under my pillow. Thalia shared the bed with me laying her sword on the floor, but directly in arms reach. Luke had the bed close to the door to himself and seemed prepared for whatever may come through it. I don't know how I fell asleep, but I did. It wasn't the best sleep, I would jerk awake every few hours and panic would start, I would roll over quickly expecting to see Riley sleeping beside me, but Thalia was there.

Out of the ten times I woke up during the night Thalia only woke up a fraction of that and always reached out and grabbed my hand quickly so I could reorient myself faster. The last time I woke up it was early in the morning and I could see the sun peeking between the drapes. I got dressed quietly, grabbed my dagger and made sure to grab a room key off the table.

I stepped outside of the room and breathed the fresh morning air, the sunrise painted the sky a beautiful purple color. I just needed to get away from the motel, I hated it in there and a small walk would cure the jitters that had plagued me for the entire night. I began to walk around the block, by tonight, or tomorrow morning we would be back at camp. The weight on my chest began to dissolve slowly but surely, and I could taste the barbeque waiting for us at the pavilion. We might have to clean stables and do dishes for a month for running away, but I would do anything to be allowed back at camp right now.

My mind drifted so far away that I didn't notice someone following me until I was shoved hard from behind. The wind was knocked out of me, but I gripped the handle of my dagger tightly and spun around. "One lonely demi-god, waiting just for me!" A lone Cyclopes laughed. I had read a lot about Cyclopes and this one was tiny, he couldn't have been much older than me to be honest, but he was deadly all the same. I didn't stay and fight, I jumped up and ran. I wasn't far from the motel, I wasn't taking on this challenge alone.

I could smell his breath close behind me and I didn't dare waste any time looking back, I just kept running until I could see the faded paint of the motel's roof. "Annabeth! Annabeth where are you?" Thalia's voice called, it was riddled with panic.

"Here I'm here, help!" I shouted.

"Too late for you." The Cyclopes laughed. I tripped on the uneven sidewalk and dropped to the ground as he swung a makeshift weapon my way. I scrambled to pick up my dagger that had tumbled across the ground. I got to my feet just in time to roll away from a metal post being wielded like a baseball bat. I just had to play defense until Thalia found me.

"Help, Thalia, I'm over here." I called jumping back, the pole made a knee knocking ringing sound as it hit the concrete. I was trying to figure out how to get away when a sword came tumbling end over end and hit the Cyclopes in the chest, he exploded into dust and I picked up the sword.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked giving me a tight hug.

"Yeah I'm fine. Than"- An animalistic roar caused the birds in the trees to take flight all around us. "What was that?"

"We pissed somebody off, we have to go, come on." Luke took his sword and we took off running towards the motel. Thalia nearly crashed into us, but she still gave me a tight hug.

"Are you guys okay? What happened?" Thalia asked me, looking me over to see if I was hurt.

"I just needed to get out of the motel, I couldn't be there anymore. There was a Cyclopes." Another scream ripped through the city and Thalia looked anxiously behind us.

"We need to get out of here, we pissed someone off by killing that Cyclopes." Luke said running into the motel and throwing all of his things into his bag. We followed his example and left the room in less than five minutes, but it was just enough time to see a colossal Cyclopes storming down the street, flanked by two slightly smaller companions, but all three of them were larger than the Cyclopes that had attacked me.

"Go, start running, into the woods, towards camp." Thalia said slamming the door to the motel and sprinting across the parking lot. No one argued with her, we just took off.

We ran for hours and ignored the aches and pains each of us were feeling, Luke had obviously rolled his ankle a few miles back but every time we got comfortable and slowed down even a little we heard another battle cry.

Finally, sometime after two in the afternoon we stopped and relaxed for the first time in hours. We each ate a bit of ambrosia and drank some nectar then ate the last of our traveling food supply. "I checked the map, we can make it to camp in four hours if we keep this pace." Thalia said biting into an apple. "How's your ankle Luke?"

"It's fine, don't worry about me. We should get going so we don't lose our lead." We each picked up our bags and started running again. We had run for hours, but we had hit the wall hard, our pace had dropped drastically and after five hours and the stampede behind us was getting closer and closer.

It was almost as if it happened in slow motion, we were so close to camp, I felt the tingle on the back of my neck from the mist shield that protected the mass of half-bloods inside. The smaller Cyclopes wrapped its fat, grubby hand around my backpack and I fell to the ground. I swung my dagger behind me blindly and a deafening roar erupted behind me. I was tossed ten feet across the ground and laid there choking on air.

"Annabeth are you okay?" Luke asked dropping to his knees beside me. I nodded and clapped my hands over my ears as lightning struck twenty feet away from us. "Thalia let's go!" Luke screamed as the smaller Cyclopes descended on us again. Luke jumped to his feet and began battling, I stumbled to mine and blinked away the dark spots in my vision. If there had been two Cyclopes we would have been fine, but there were three. As soon as I got to my feet I was attacked by the last Cyclopes.

I rolled away as the iron beam being wielded as a weapon nearly crushed my spine. I reoriented myself in time to watch Thalia turn her bracelet into a shield before I was thrown into my own life and death battle. Thankfully I had the fattest, ugliest, and dumbest Cyclopes, but we had seriously pissed them off and they were out for the kill. Even though this particular Cyclopes was slow, one strike and I would be dead in minutes. I ducked and the beam whistled above my head, as the Cyclopes struggled to recover from the swing I lunged forward and slashed my dagger through his thigh. The beam fell to the ground with a knee knocking thud and I was back-handed to the ground, a hand half the size of my entire body pinned me to the ground and the Cyclopes screamed directly into my face less than a foot away. I didn't have time to recover, I swung my dagger into its wrist once, twice, three times before I was free. Blood rained down on me and I could hear the agony above me, but I struggled to sit up. White hot pain coursed through my chest, but now wasn't the time. I watched as the Cyclopes struggled to pick up the iron beam again, now was the time, I clenched my jaw and scrambled to my feet. I sprinted forward as the Cyclopes was bent over and lodged my dagger into its back.

I was struck in the head and tasted blood in my mouth, but I had to do this myself, Thalia was busy and so was Luke. I followed the first rule of short distance combat and kept a tight grip on my weapon and though I undoubtedly had a concussion I managed to stab the Cyclopes again and this time it exploded into dust.

I was left shaking from head to toe in monster dust and wiped the blood falling from my eyebrow. Lightning struck feet away from me and I remembered my friends needed my help, I ran over to Thalia but she boxed me out. "Go help Luke and get to camp." She said through clenched teeth, I did what she said and joined Luke. We fought together like a well-oiled machine, the smaller Cyclopes didn't stand a chance and we conquered it in minutes.

We high-fived each other and Luke glanced worriedly at the cuts on my face. The final Cyclopes roared something terrible and began cursing us and the gods for killing his sons. He raised his weapon of choice, a broken street light, and swung it down at Thalia.

Time slowed, it could have been moving backwards, either way I couldn't move fast enough. Thalia raised her shield instinctively and sparks flew from the contact the lamp made with Aegis and the two of them were thrown flat on their backs. Thalia's shield recoiled into its bracelet form and Thalia cried out cradling her arm, anyone could see that it was broken. "We have to help." I struggled to say, but Luke kept a tight grip on my arm and couldn't seem to hear me.

"Get back to camp." Thalia shouted as the Cyclopes rose to its feet, Thalia followed suit, picking her sword up off the ground. She held her arm tight to her body and charged the Cyclopes with an honorable look of determination glued tight to her face. I glanced at Luke in disbelief, there was no way we were going to let her do this, his face was stone, but tears fell from his eyes.

"We have to help." I whispered, Luke shook his head and held tight to my arm. He began dragging me towards the mist border. Lightning split the tree beside us illuminating the historic scene before us and as darkness totally enveloped them we saw something we could never un-see.

Thalia wasn't used to protecting a weak side and after a few minutes the Cyclopes noticed it and caught Thalia by surprise. He swung at her broken arm with the lamp as if it were a bat and Thalia flew into a tree, her body crumpled at the roots and she didn't move. The Cyclopes scooped her up in its hand and tossed her over its shoulder as if she were a sack of potatoes, she was limp and her head lolled in a nauseating way.

I broke from Luke's grasp and charged without hesitation. "Annabeth, no!" Luke shouted, but it was the distraction I needed. The Cyclopes stooped and turned at the noise and I jumped as hard as I could, swinging my dagger. It pierced the Cyclopes' throat and with a small choking noise it exploded into dust. I fell to the ground and Thalia landed in an unsettling heap beside me.

"Thalia?" I choked leaning down close to hear her breathe, hear her heart, something. "Luke, go get help!" I shouted placing a shaking hand on her face. Luke finally moved and spun around running towards camp. I knew Thalia had hit the tree really hard and if I moved her and hurt her more I would feel terrible, but I couldn't help but hold her close. "Please don't leave me, please don't. I need you, you're my best friend." I felt tears on my face but I didn't feel like crying. I felt like screaming and cursing the gods, I wanted to shake Thalia till she woke up and squeeze her till she held me back.

"Annabeth, Thalia!" A voice called through the woods. Static electricity made the hairs on my body stand on end and thunder rumbled through the sky.

"Over here, we need help!" I screamed as loud as I could. Grover, Luke, and Chiron came bursting through the woods. "Help, please please help." I sobbed. The air was filled with a suffocating amount of electricity and Chiron kept looking at the angry, rolling clouds. Grover placed his hand on my back before easing Thalia out of my arms, he glanced at Chiron with a clenched jaw and wet eyes. "We have to get her back to camp, there's some ambrosia in my backpack, where's my backpack?"

"Ambrosia won't help." Grover whispered squeezing my shoulder.

"Then the elders, you have a healing song right? Something?" Grover kept looking at Chiron with pleading eyes, but Chiron was distracted by the sky.

"What the hell are you both looking at? Thalia needs help." I screamed. Luke just stood there staring at Thalia laying on the ground. "Luke do something damnit."

"There's nothing we can do Annabeth, Thalia's gone." Chiron said as if he were Atlas, carrying the world upon his shoulders.

"Do something, please, just do something." Sparks began to fly from Thalia's fingers.

"Come over here Annabeth." Chiron said softly. I shook my head, but stopped when the world began to spin. Lightning struck behind me and Grover jumped to his feet, I was unfazed, if anything it was proof that Thalia was alive, that she was fighting to live.

"I'm so sorry Annie, I love her too." Grover said grabbing my arm and trying to pull me to my feet.

"I'm not going to leave her. I need her." I cried into her leather jacket hoping she would wake up, all she had to do was wake up. Thunder clapped overhead and lightning struck a tree beside us.

"Get back." Chiron shouted and his arms scooped me up, ripping me away from Thalia just as blinding, white, hot lightning struck Thalia. There was no way you could stare into the lightning before us, it was so bright you could see it with your eyes closed and just when it appeared to be over another bolt took its place.

When it finally ended I forced myself out of Chiron's arms and blinked, trying to regain my vision in the dark. Thalia was gone and a monstrous pine tree stood where she had fallen, I reached out and placed my hand on the rough bark before taking a deep breath and punching the tree as hard as I could.

I punched it again and again and again, but all I noticed was that my throat hurt. I hadn't noticed I was screaming, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered anymore. Thunder continued to clap overhead and eventually rain poured down in sheets as if the apocalypse were upon us. I punched that stupid pine tree until blood ran down my knuckles, Luke grabbed my elbow and pulled me into a tight hug. He started walking towards Chiron and Grover, who had distanced themselves by a few feet, I let him step a few feet away before stooping down to pick up Thalia's fallen sword. I swung it as hard as I could at the tree, carving out a large chunk, and followed Luke to where a defeated Chiron and Grover stood.

We crossed the mist into the border of camp and saw that the entire camp was standing there in their pajamas, drenched to the bone. Lightning struck the giant pine tree behind us and everyone seemed to understand. "Thalia's gone." Whispers erupted. "Thalia is dead." Tears erupted throughout the crowd of campers and Malcolm broke his way through the mob.

"Come on, I'll take you to the big house." He whispered taking Thalia's sword from my hand. Luke dragged his feet behind us and Chiron seemed distracted in thought while Grover disappeared into the woods.

"It's my fault." I whispered as Malcolm wrapped his hand tightly in mine.

"No it isn't." He answered as we crossed through the horseshoe of cabins. Thalia's empty cabin stood there and lightning illuminated the windows in a haunting way. I glanced over my shoulder at the crowd of campers on the hill, you could still see that pine tree from here. "I'm going to make sure Thalia's shroud is one to remember, it's going to be as magnificent as she was." I nodded and was overcome by exhaustion.

I dragged my body up the stairs and Malcolm draped my arm over his shoulder to get me into the infirmary. By the time I made it to the bed in the far corner all the injuries I had sustained actually began hurting. I was ordered to eat three squares of ambrosia and given a glass and a half of nectar to wash it down, the heat filled my body and made it feel heavier than humanly possible.

"Don't leave." I whispered to Malcolm, he pulled the cot beside mine closer and laid beside me.

"I won't, don't worry. We'll get through this, but right now you need to get better." I tried to sigh dramatically but my broken ribs ached. I fell asleep with nectar and ambrosia warming my otherwise emotionless body and woke up days later with my hand in a cast and rain pounding on the windows.

"Malcolm?" I asked the shape lying on the cot beside me. It didn't move so I jabbed it with my finger.

"What?" He huffed turning around slowly. "Oh Annabeth you're awake." A smile glittered across his face.

"It's raining again?" I asked looking through a nearby window.

"It hasn't stopped raining, lightning keeps striking her tree, Zeus is really hurt." Malcolm said softly. "It's been three days."

"Three? You let me sleep for three days?" I tried to sit up but my stomach lurched.

"You have a really bad concussion, your ribs healed up pretty well and you won't even have a scar where you hit your head but ambrosia and nectar only work so well, you have to have that cast on for two weeks." I sighed and watched a candle flicker from a drafty window. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." I said harshly.

"Okay." Malcolm pulled his blanket up around his shoulders and stared at the candle with me.

"It should have been me, I attracted the Cyclopes and I got caught. I should have helped Thalia fight. I should have done better."

"I watched you runaway, I should have stopped you." Malcolm answered quietly.

"Thalia would have gone anyways." I assured him, I was handed another square of ambrosia and a glass of nectar and my headache was gone. I was released from the infirmary and told that I had to come and get some ambrosia until I could get the cast off. Malcolm walked with me to our cabin and I kept my eyes on the ground so I wouldn't have to see Thalia's tree.

"Hey Annabeth, how are you feeling?" Melanie asked as I stepped into the common room, where all my siblings and a few others were hanging out due to the rain.

"Better." I answered honestly.

"We were just about to start a movie, you're more than welcome to join us." I shrugged and sat with Malcolm on a large bean bag. Malcolm placed a protective arm on my shoulders and I leaned into him without hesitating, I fell asleep during the first five minutes of the movie and woke up to Malcolm shaking my shoulder gently. "Hey Annabeth, let's go to bed." Melanie offered a stretched out hand and I followed her to our room, I dressed in pajamas and she braided my hair like she always did and actually tucked me into my covers. "If you need me just wake me up, you won't make me mad." I nodded and she gave my hand a tight squeeze before walking over to her bed.

"Shh, don't wake up Annabeth, she doesn't have to get up until she's ready." Melanie's voice broke through my unconsciousness.

"Why doesn't she have to wake up yet? We can't even do anything today it's still raining." A younger camper groaned, someone I didn't know, someone that must have shown up when I left with Thalia and Luke.

"She hit her head pretty hard and needs to rest, now go get dressed and be ready for breakfast." Melanie grumbled. I sat up anyway and Melanie sighed slightly defeated. "Take your time Annie." She said with a weak smile and helped the little kids get ready.

I waited for everyone to leave before tying a plastic bag around my hand and taking a shower, which made washing my hair really difficult. I got dressed and found that breakfast had been brought to our cabin since the pavilion didn't have a ceiling. I made myself a plate and sat beside Malcolm, but I didn't eat anything.

After helping clean up everyone settled at their desks and pulled out ongoing projects while I sat at mine and stared at my blank computer screen. "Hey Annabeth." Malcolm said, the anxiety evident in his voice. I looked up at him and saw the shroud in his arms, my eyes began to water and I stared at a spot on the wall behind Malcolm. I cleaned off my desk and motioned for him to put it down. We unfolded it carefully and I dried my eyes furiously so I could actually see what was on it.

'Thalia Grace' was embroidered in gold above a design of Aegis with a lightning bolt going through it. I ran my hand over the shroud, the only thing we had to represent her at this funeral. "It's perfect." I said softly to Malcolm.

"I told you it would be the best." He responded simply. I nodded and stared at the shroud for over an hour. "It stopped raining." Malcolm said in the careful tone he had adopted these past few days. I didn't look up at him and he sat down in his chair beside my desk. "I think Zeus wants us to burn the shroud tonight, it looks as though it will start to rain again any minute." I nodded numbly.

"Zeus can take whatever he wants, he already has." I heard myself say. I shook off the feeling and looked up at Malcolm. "I want to go see the tree before the ceremony." Malcolm just nodded and began folding the shroud with shaking fingers.

Chiron stopped by our cabin and told everyone that Thalia's burial ceremony would be in an hour and Malcolm told him that we were going to go see Thalia's tree. I changed into a camp t-shirt and found Malcolm and Chiron waiting for me outside our cabin. Malcolm had Thalia's shroud folded neatly in his arms and we walked towards the massive tree atop the hill at Camp Half-Blood.

When we reached it Chiron kept a respectable distance and Malcolm and I approached the pine tree. "Can I touch it?" Malcolm asked looking up at the tree.

"She was your friend too." I responded honestly. Malcolm reached out a shaking hand and touched the chunk of missing bark on Thalia's tree. I pulled down a branch of the tree and twisted off a foot at the end, I stared at this piece of pine tree and tried to figure out how this could possibly replace Thalia to suddenly hear sobbing. I touched my cheeks frantically to see if I had started crying again, but my hand came back dry, I spun around and saw that Malcolm was sitting at the trunk crying. I sat beside him and draped my arm across his shoulders, he didn't cry for long, but it was the first time I had ever seen Malcolm be anything other than happy.

"You see that notch there?" I asked gesturing at the tree, Malcolm nodded. "I attacked it with her sword." Malcolm let out a forced laugh and leaned into my shoulder.

"It isn't fair. She was the best at everything, I know she wasn't perfect, but she was the best." Malcolm sniffed. "Cutting down the tree won't bring her back though." I shrugged and Chiron approached slowly, making a lot of noise so Malcolm could dry his face and find his usual smile.

"Are you ready?" Chiron asked me, I nodded even though I wasn't and started the walk from Thalia's tree to the bonfire pit. I held onto the pine tree clipping as tight as I could and Malcolm held the shroud tightly to his chest.

I suddenly found myself standing in front of the entire camp with Luke and Chiron at my side. Luke had Thalia's sword in his hands and I was there with the shroud and piece of pine tree. Chiron began speaking about how Thalia will always be remembered and how the legends of Hercules were known around the world it was our job to tell the story of Thalia Grace, a demi-god that sacrificed herself for others. Chiron motioned for me to lay the shroud on the bonfire that was emitting a pitiful heat, I unfolded it carefully and Luke seemed to approve of the artwork Malcolm had done.

Luke stepped forward and carefully placed her sword on the shroud and I put the pine branch on top. Luke grabbed my hand tightly and we stepped back to Chiron's side, I looked up at Luke to see silent tears falling from his eyes. I glanced around at the rest of the camp and saw that even those that hadn't met Thalia were crying. A child of the "big three" didn't stand a chance in this world, arguably one of the most powerful demi-gods in existence was extinguished by a creature that belonged in Tartarus.

Gold flames suddenly erupted in the pit, but no warmth radiated from them. The shroud seemed to evaporate into the flames and her sword glowed white as it melted away before all that was left was the clipping from what had become known around camp as 'Thalia's Tree'. The sky rumbled overhead, but no one was fazed, thunder had been rolling for almost a week. Lightning struck the piece of pine tree and a gold aura surrounded camp before it faded thirty seconds later. The flames ate the piece of pine tree and everything was gone, there was silence except for a few sniffs and sobs that couldn't be contained. It began pouring again as if it had never stopped, but no one made a move to leave.

I used the rain on my face to allow my brothers, sisters, and cousins to see me at my weakest, I allowed them to see me cry for the one person that ever understood me. And crying in front of them I vowed to be someone that Thalia would be proud of.

**You guys should check out Age of Strife by diomedes285**

**PLEASE REVIEW! Thank you for reading**

**-Kodi**


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